


Leaves

by R00bs_Teacup



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-18 00:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12377409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: Picks up where canon left off, boring paperwork, many angsts I guess, but gentle boring ones. No much happens really. It's a john and rodney fic where they don't quite get together cus it went on FOREVER and I never quite got around to that bit, Rodney is still with Jennifer for a bunch of it. Atlantis and her bunch of misfits fight to get back to the Pegasus galaxy is maybe a summary? Rodney is surprisingly not awful at people in a hopefully in character way? john is unsurprisingly terrible at people in a hopefully in character way?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my docs for YEARS literally and i am tired of the fucker so I am throwing it at AO3

A month into Atlantis's forced stay on earth, the grillings by the IOA, the debriefs with the SGC and the downsizing of the military on base were mostly over with. Rodney was still almost high with glee, scuttling about with tablets, Zelenka and various science teams that were all over the city now, busy every hour he could spare and sometimes those he couldn't. He'd take a break to spend time with Jennifer or if John dragged him to eat, or if Ronan and Teyla and John happened to be on Atlantis all at once, but otherwise he was lost in the city's innards, exploring now that he had time. John, after finishing up his paperwork, was stuck writing up strategy reports and working with Lorne to come up with new city guidelines, for the Milky way and for Pegasus, should they ever return there. 

He's sitting in his office, writing what is essentially an essay on the various physics-defying flight patterns the jumpers are capable of, when Teyla knocks on the door and comes in, Torren on her shoulder, beaming at him. John finishes up the paragraph he's editing and checks how much he has left before looking up and smiling back at her. He's tired and bored, and not much in the mood for her joyful motherhood this afternoon. 

“Hey, Teyla,” he says, pushing back his chair, “how can I help?” 

“It's good to see you,” she says, smile widening, “I was wondering if you'd be able to watch Torren for half an hour? The SGC has finally decided to allow Kannan to come to Atlantis, seeing as we're stuck here.” 

“That's brilliant. I suppose he's coming back with the General Hammond?” 

“Yes. You received the reports of the Wraith activity?” 

“Yeah, still no sign anyone else has any inkling of earth. Good. So, I'm babysitting?” 

“If you wouldn't mind. Kannan will want to come straight here to see him, so it shouldn't be for long. He wasn't entirely convinced, when I went to collect Torren, that he'd be able to join us so soon.” 

John grunts in what he hopes is some kind of encouraging and pleased way. He gets up and takes the baby from her, lifting Torren above his head to make the kid laugh before bouncing him gently. 

“He's awake, so he might need entertaining. Thank you, John. For this, and also for convincing the SGC I was needed here. It would have been hard to return to Pegasus without you and the city.” 

John goes for another grunt, pretending to be distracted by Torren. Teyla makes a sound that means, he's sure, that she's on to him, but she says goodbye without making him talk about feelings, which is something she sometimes does. 

“Alright, squid,” John says, to Torren, “what shall we do to get into trouble while she's gone?” 

***

“Uh, Rodney?” John says, an hour later, backing out with Torren. 

What? I'm busy here. 

“You always are. You know the old music room?” 

Yes, I know it, I went to that awful concert with you only a few months ago, and Zelenka used to drag me there. Why? 

“I kind of made it... glow.” 

What? You're a menace. Fine, fine, we will look at it when we have a chance. 

“Now, Mckay. I have Torren with me.” 

Right, okay, you're a pain in the arse but okay. 

Rodney clicks off, so John takes Torren back to his office. He droops on the way, drooling onto John's shoulder, and is firmly asleep by the time they make it back to the desk. John crooks up a knee, foot resting on his thigh, and uses the triangle of his leg, his discarded jacket, and a woolly jumper Lorne left to make a space for Torren to sleep. He's looking over SGC reports from the Hammond by the time Teyla comes back. 

“Any trouble?” she asks, smiling, ushering Kannan. 

“Nope, no, none at all. Trouble? Of course not. Hey, Kannan. Long time. How was the trip?” John says, grinning at the man he hardly knows but likes for Teyla's sake. 

“It was long, John Sheppard. The ship was large and the people were kind to me,” Kanaan says, seriously, eyes glued to his son. 

John hands Torren over and Teyla whispers something to her partner, heads bent over the kid, then sends him away with a beaming smile and a kiss before settling in John's visitor chair. 

“So,” she says, sternly, “what happened?” 

“Really, nothing. I just... accidentally switched on another bit of the city,” John says, “it's been happened on and off, now there are three ZPMs and the scientists have time to sort all the little broken things that they never bothered with. Wiring and all that.” 

“What did you turn on?” 

“We didn't get touched by the light,” John reassures, “We got right out of the room. Nothing happened.” 

Colonel? 

“Oh, look, it's Mckay,” John says, “Hey Mckay.” 

You literally switched on the lights, John. The room must have been some kind of performance space, there are sort of flood lights like the one you put on all along both walls. 

“Great! No worries then?” 

None at all. Tell Teyla that Torren is fine. Also, you are a complete menace. I'm going off coms, lunch with Jennifer. 

“Right. It was a light I turned on.” 

Teyla smiles at him and rises. 

“Well, I must go see my husband and my son.” 

“Yeah. Have fun. Um.” 

Teyla leans to rest her forehead against his and then leaves him. John's about to turn back to the report he was busy with before her earlier interruption, but before he can Ronon barges in. After a week of barely seeing any of his team, it seems he's doomed to see them all today. Though, he's kind of glad, his reports are boring. 

“Sheppard,” Ronon says. 

“Hey Ronon. What's up? You want to spar? Introduce me to some painful Satedan game? Run?” 

“Nope. I want a favour. Amelia. I want to take her to dinner.” 

“And I come in...” 

“I want to go to the mainland, and I want to pay.” 

John sighs. Teyla and Ronon have complete freedom on Atlantis, and relative freedom at the SGC, but they're still not really allowed off base without having someone with them. 

“I'll do what I can about the dinner. In terms of money, we've been paying you as a civilian contractor since you signed that paperwork for Woolsey.” 

“So I have money.” 

“Yeah. Talk to... who do you talk to? Um... staff seargant- no. You know the level of offices below the control room?” 

“The civilian ones?” 

“Yeah, those. Office three-oh-five belongs to Rosa Jennings and Karen Holling. They can probably talk you through money stuff. I think you're being paid as an American, but if not Karen can get you in touch with whoever's liaising for whatever country we put you under.” 

“Rosa and Karen, three-oh-five. Right. Great.” 

Ronon barges out again and John turns to face the wall and count to ten before calling Landry. It's not that he doesn't respect the guy, and he's a solid general and Carter likes him so that's a tick on the right side in John's book. He just happens to be the sort of commanding officer who rubs John the wrong way, and the feeling is mutual. 

It takes six hours, too many phonecalls to count, and four favours that John was storing for a rainy day before he gets clearance for Ronon to go off base. He goes for 'all alien contractors' rather than 'Ronon', which means Teyla, the other three Athosians, the Olesian Eldon, and all other 'aliens' who chose to stay with the city can have the same freedom. He then drafts several reports and security assessments and other paperwork, sends out an email announcement, and sends all the 'contractors' invitations to attend a briefing in Sally Haverton's office before going up there himself. 

He knocks on the door, glancing down the hall at the finance office where Ronon was earlier, then goes into the office without waiting for an answer. Sally's sat at her computer, tapping away at the keys, but she waves him over into a chair. Lakeson is sat in a corner, legs crossed primly, mouth tight, flicking through a report-file. 

“Everything okay, captain?” John asks, giving his attention to Lakeson seeing as Sally's busy for the moment. 

“No, sir. That hunk of junk marine, Corporal Sandy, has taken it into his head to file yet another complaint against Ricks.” 

John sorts through the various pressure points he's aware of, but finds nothing labelled 'Ricks and Sandy'. 

“Sorry Captain, you'll have to lay it out for me.” 

“Ricks is the chemist on LT Johnson's team.” 

“Brittish Johnson or French Johnson?” 

“French.” 

“Right, got him. Henry Ricks.” 

“That's it, sir. He's queer, he comes to the LGBT thing we set up third year.” 

“I sat in on the first month’s meetings, but I haven't been back since. No problems have been reported.” 

“Nothing big enough to reach you, sir. No, that's not the problem. Sandy's only been on base for the past three months, came with the last lot. He's got a mouth on him and he got into it with LT Johnson once or twice, then Ricks slapped him down. Ricks is bright and quick on his feet and Sandy was left humiliated. He tried to have a go at Ricks for being queer, which got him reported. We work under international rules so- well, you know that. Anyway, since then there has been a steady stream of complaints against Ricks, ranging from generic to sexual, to inappropriate behaviour and aggressive posturing. It's bullshit, but we have to look into all of them because Sandy is General Sanderson's beloved son and it's not worth the political headache. Johnson passed it off to me.” 

“You can bring it to me and I'll kick Sandy to the curb.” 

“Yes sir, thank you, sir. It shouldn't come to that, but it's good to know. It's just frustrating. We're supposed to be dealing with culture clashes, problems with discrimination and inter-agency issues, not schoolyard idiocy.” 

“I know the feeling,” John says. 

“Colonel? I'm done with this if you wanted to see me,” Sally says, cutting in. 

John turns to her and Captain Lakeson gives him a lazy salute before going back to quietly cursing his paperwork. 

“I got clearance for Ronon and the others, finally. Got the paperwork sent over to you and everything,” John says. 

“Fantastic! That makes my life much easier. Let me just... oh yeah, I have... okay, briefing tomorrow at twelve?” 

“Do you need me here?” 

“I need someone, especially if Ronon's along. No offence just that he respects the military.” 

“I'll handle Ronon, he wants out tonight. Okay if I send LT Hernandez? He's got a good grasp on this stuff, he's been taking Athosian Marta out with his team whenever he needs trading or diplomatic assistance for years,” John says. 

“Done. I'll set up the briefing then send out an addendum to your email. I actually wanted to see you, I need a word about the new IOA guidelines. There are several problems with implementation as the base currently stands.” 

John checks his watch and swears when he realises it's already after six. 

“Can we make an appointment for tomorrow? I can rope Woolsey or one of his guys in, too, then. They're better with the lawyer speak than I am.” 

“Sure, I'll check my diary.” 

John pulls out his own and they co-ordinate and John kind of hates that this is what his life has become, but it's temporary. He can live with temporary. He nods to Lakeson as he leaves and Sally reminds him of the gathering they're having on Friday for the small contingent of full-time staff on the base, which means he can now not claim ignorance of it. He tracks Ronon down, gives him a quick talk about staying safe alone on earth before giving him into Sargeant Banks' capable hands, then tracks Rodney down. 

Rodney's sitting with Jennifer in the mess and it looks kind of private. John knows not to interrupt Teyla's family time or Ronon's date. Lorne's off on leave to catch up with his own family. Zelenka's sitting at a table of scientists babbling away in Czech and Russian. There isn't really anyone else who John wants to sit with, not since the military contingent has been shrunk to a quarter of it's size. Most of the soldiers under his command are the guys from the last drop off with the Deadelus or brand new from the SGC. John tried to get everyone else leave as soon as they were done with debriefing. 

John ends up sitting alone, poking through his email on his tablet. He’s busy not lonely. Now that he's no longer busy, just bureaucracy and strategy to be getting on with, he's started to notice the eating alone thing and it's starting to bother him a bit. He's half glad of the respite from people and responsibility, but mostly he's a little lonely. He had Caldwell for a bit, when the Deadalus was in orbit, talking through the various duties of a base that was not at war. The man had actually been helpful. But his company was only enjoyable short term and the Deadalus is in other skies, now. 

“Colonel.” 

John looks up and waves Woolsey to sit with him, putting away his tablet. 

“I saw you were eating alone,” Woolesy says, sitting down and unpacking his tray, “and thought I would offer my company.” 

“Thanks,” John says. 

“Mm. I also wanted to talk to you about the next few weeks. I am taking a holiday, in two weeks time, and I think that it's about time your team had a little vacation time as well.” 

“Major Lorne's due back in a week to relieve me of duty here,” John admits, “but I think that the SGC wants me somewhere else. I've been trying to talk Rodney into taking time since he got done with the IOA board, and I know Doctor Keller has been begging him to get off base. She's not working at the moment, Doctor Biro is running the med bay.” 

“I read the reports.” 

“Yeah, well, Teyla and Ronon live here but I think Sargeant Banks has a plan for herself and Ronon, when she goes on leave at the end of the week. She got stuck with a longer duty than most of the long term staff, because she's been training people.” 

“Mmhmm. So Ronon and Sergeant banks will be taking time from...?” 

“From Thursday. Now that Kanaan's here, I guess Teyla might do something along the same lines. Rodney's close to giving in.” 

“So it's just you we have to sort.” 

“I'll have a couple of weeks between tours,” John says with a yawn, “who knew paperwork was so tiring?” 

“Who knew.” 

“Um, Richard. I meant to thank you for the contracts you and Mr Kennington sorted for the alien population of Atlantis,” John says, scratching the back of his neck, face scrunched. 

“Yes, I noticed that you managed to get clearance in an afternoon. We've been working on that all month.” 

“I called in a few favours.” 

“You must be owed some hot favours.” 

John grins quickly, thinking of General O'Caffrey. 

“Just a few things that don't come up on my official docket.” 

“Mind if I ask for that story?” 

John stays quiet for a while, thinking it over. Eventually he gives a little. 

“O'Caffrey, the man the president recently decided would make a good liaison for the military in DC. The black mark on my record? We were in Afghanistan, and we had some bad intel, ended up on the general's block. Tiny base, a crappy posting that he was stuck on after a mark on his record, a mistake. Two of my team were injured, one of my choppers was down, I was being pulled away for an op in Iran.” 

“I'm sorry, Sheppard. John.” 

“Yeah, well. Captain Holland was a good friend so I wasn't ready to just give up like that. General O'Caffrey was in charge of the rescue and told me that after the first try had been fired on... He passed the orders on to me, I was being re-deployed and was to leave Hol there, no more tries to get to them and no one else to be then. Then he agreed to help me; he delayed the order that would have told the team on standby for the rescue mission that it was off, and I took them out to the site.” 

“Seems like you owe him the favour.” 

“Yeah, I do. But I didn't testify against him and I never told anyone what he'd done, so he got to keep his job; his record had a few marks on already it’d have ended him. He would have gone down for me, admitted to the delayed order and said he'd never passed the stand-down on, but I made him see... I had already disobeyed the order to present myself elsewhere so I was in for it anyway. He'd... my record could stand the black mark.” 

“I see.” 

“I now have to go play golf with him in DC next time I'm up that way.” 

Woolsey laughs and John relaxes, realising he's been all-but standing at attention, reciting the story. 

“Holland died anyway,” John says. 

“I'm sorry for that.” 

They sit in silence for a while, thinking of the others they've lost. John shuts his eyes when he gets all the way back to Ford, and wishes that he was sitting with Rodney with one of his long rants to distract. Or that he could ask Ronon for a sparring match, or ask Teyla to beat him with sticks. Something to vent the frustration. 

“I'll take the week, when Lorne comes back,” John says, suddenly. “Can you file the paperwork for me? It'll be better coming from you. I should... there are a few people...” 

“Take two, if you're doing that. You'll need it.” 

John nods. He's had just about as much of the soul baring that he can take, possibly for a lifetime, so he goes to bus his tray and dishes before heading back to his office to wrap up the day. He heads down to the gym levels when that's done and works up a sweat on his own before finding a sparring partner at the mats and letting out some of his aggression. He and Sergeant Collins end up in the infirmary, getting the Sergeant's wrist and knee wrapped, and Biro tells him not to take his aggression out on the poor marines. While scrubbing at the cut on his hairline with stinging stuff. She just smiles sweetly when he scowls at her. 

By the time Friday rolls around Teyla and Kanaan have agreed to go with Amelia and Ronon on a sightseeing tour of the West Coast of the US. John and Jennifer manage to talk Rodney into going to meet her family with the promise of everyone meeting up on the next week in New York to do some team sightseeing and, the thing that really swings it for Rodney, eating. John promises to sample as many ice cream and pizza parlours as they can manage, as well as promising to take Rodney to Texas to see if they can find the biggest barbecue going. 

***  
John feels like he's on the tour of hell for the next week. After handing over to Lorne he digs up the dockets of the men he knew well enough to talk about and he ends up all over the continent, drinking tea, seeing gravestones, telling stories about the men and women who served under him and promising every time that they were important to him, to the army, to the country, that they died bravely and that they were the best of the best. He saves Ford's family for last and sits in his cousin's livingroom, facing her again to tell her that they found him but then lost him. When he leaves her, he's done. He flies to New York, not wanting to hang around anywhere, checks into the hotel, and tries to crash out. He sleeps for twenty minutes before someone bangs on the door incessantly and he has to drag himself up and get it. He's met by Rodney, grinning at him, a brand new touch pad under one arm, Jennifer under the other, both looking tanned, rested and happy. 

“You look like shit, Colonel,” Rodney says, cheerfully. 

John wants to bite and he's tired enough and fed up enough that he almost does. Instead he grits his teeth and invites them in. Keller, to his relief, declines, but Rodney pushes in and tells John about his week, making himself at home on John's bed and with John's television remote and mini bar snacks. 

“I hope you're planning on paying for those,” John says, stretching out by Rodney's hip and letting his eyes drift shut. It's actually kind of nice, having Rodney so close. John snags Rodney's shirt between his fingers, absently, needing something to ground himself. 

“Alright, Colonel?” Rodney asks, voice softer than is comfortable. 

John opens his eyes to glare but Rodney just shrugs and scowls at him, huffing and shifting until John holds on again to still the movement and closes his eyes. Then he sets into a rant about airports and tourists and crowds of people, which lulls John to sleep. When he wakes up next he's alone and it feels like it might be morning. On checking his watch he discovers that not only is it morning, it's half past ten and he's slept better than in a long, long time. He gets up and grabs a shower and shaves, glorying in being able to put on civies instead of his dress uniform, and heads down to breakfast. Teyla hails him before he gets done loading up at the buffet and as soon as he's sat down Rodney's on him. 

“You're an idiot,” Rodney states. “Also, I stole a whole carafe of coffee for the table so you didn't need to get any. But, idiot. As I said. You could have broken that up a bit. Did you seriously spend a week going house to house of grieving families? Honestly, I'm no shrink but I can tell you that isn't good for whatever is left of your brain.” 

“Just wanted to get it done,” John shrugs. “I would ask how your week was but I think I heard as much as I want to last night.” 

“Oi! I was being supportive!” 

John ignores him and leans over Teyla to poke Torren's nose gently and say good morning to the others, ruffling the kid's hair as he looks up at Kanaan and Jennifer. 

“Where're Ronon and sergeant Banks?” he asks, not spotting them. 

“At the gym, beating one another up,” Rodney says. 

“They're running, actually,” Keller says, “and it's a healthy pass-time.” 

“Are you implying-” Rodney starts. 

“No and I'm not having this argument again,” Keller snaps, rolling her eyes. 

John focuses on his eggs on toast, grinning at Teyla as she rolls her eyes too and and talks to Torren. The illusion of privacy is enough for Rodney to deflate, starting in on what he wants to do with the day instead. 

“I'm going to visit an old friend from med school,” Keller says, then holds up a hand to stop whatever Rodney's swelled up to say. “No, you do not have to come, in fact you wouldn't be very welcome. And no, I will not skip it to do things with you, she's the only good friend I managed to make at school and I want to keep in touch.” 

“Fine, fine,” Rodney says, snapping his fingers expectantly at John. 

“I'm gonna find a park, get a bit of sunshine, find a pizza place for lunch, and spend the afternoon somewhere quiet,” John says. 

“No you are not,” Teyla says. “You and Rodney will be coming with us to climb up the statue of the woman with the torch. Amelia tells me that that is what we must do in this big city.” 

Rodney and John exchange looks but give in with good grace. They silently agree to stick together in the face of alien tourists, though, and only give in to the big things. John refuses to spend the whole week trekking through cities, footsore and bored, and he can see an answering stubbornness in Rodney's face. John grins and pours himself more coffee, kicking out a chair for Ronon when he and Sergeant Banks come in. 

It turns out that they have a lot to talk about after the week apart and by the time they leave the breakfast table it's almost afternoon. Ronon realises that the tickets have a time on them and there's chaos as everyone thinks they've missed their chance but John confiscates the tickets to have a look and sees the date is actually tomorrow. Instead Sergeant Banks takes them to the High Line. Rodney and John get into a heated discussion about Daredevil when they spot Hell’s Kitchen and they're still bickering when they all sit for a rest and to look at the city, and so Teyla can feed Torren. John lets Rodney win and goes to stand away from the others, looking out across the city, enjoying being high up and almost in the sky. He's playing spot the landmark when Rodney joins him, nudging him with his shoulder then just standing, still and quiet for once. 

“It's nice,” Rodney admits, grudgingly. John nods in agreement and breathes in, deeply, letting it out in a rush. “I'd ask again if you were alright but I know you might push me off here and it’s high.” 

John snorts and nudges Rodney's shoulder, then leans for a moment. Rodney pats his back. 

“I'm good,” John decides. “Pretty good.” 

“This helps,” Rodney says, or asks, or regurgitates from Jenniffer. 

John nods, knowing that he means everything; Rodney, the team, the holiday, the gentle pace. No need to rush to see things, taking things as they come. John breathes deeply again then grins at Rodney. 

“Could be fun, shoving you over the edge.” 

Rodney glares and stomps back to Keller, leaving John to laugh and look at the view again. It's late by the time they get back to the hotel, after eating in Chinatown with Sergeant Banks' recommendation trumping Rodney's whining about it not being pizza. John considers suggesting a night-cap at the bar but he realises that the couples are ready for some couple-y time so he tells them he's tired and goes up to his room. He finds that he really is pretty tired and, after doing a quick check of his emails and replying to Dave, letting him know he's back 'stateside', he has a shower and crashes out again. 

He doesn't sleep as well as he wants to, restless with dreams he can't remember when he wakes. He's too hot but he thinks it's because he was dreaming about Afghanistan and the Atlantis of the future, Rodney all alone as a hologram, Holland alone in the sand, waiting for John to save the world. He staggers into the shower and shoves himself under the spray, lies on the bed for a while, dozing. By the time he pulls it together it's almost quarter to ten but he's feeling more rested and well balanced after a nap. This time, only Rodney's at breakfast, everyone else busy getting ready for the trip up the Statue of Liberty. 

“Have you done it before?” Rodney asks. 

“Nope. Been to New York, between tours, couple years ago. But we didn't do Lady Liberty.” 

“Drinking and girls, huh, Colonel? Young soldiers living it up?” 

John winces. 

“I was here for my co-pilot's funeral.” 

“Sorry. Ouch.” 

“There was no body. I had to leave him in-” John cuts himself off out of habit, then rubs his face, “North Korea. It was an evac gone FUBAR and we had no time. I left him breathing.” 

“Wow, I really put my foot in it. God, that's horrific, and I am so glad that while I have embraced the soldierly life of your gate team that I'm not actually military and that we never leave a man behind. I mean, Pegasus is horrific, but it's aliens and space and wow, I probably have so much to work through, but at least it's not humans, tearing each other apart, and at least we have more leeway and don't have to leave people alone in hostile places to-” 

“Rodney,” John interrupts. 

Rodney pours him another cup of coffee and shoves a muffin his way, which is apology enough. John takes the muffin and keeps to himself just how long ago that was and how it's been dealt with for so long, and the wince and face rubbing was tiredness and irritation not pain; he keeps the muffin and the coffee and Rodney's good will. 

They discover that Kanaan gets sea sick on the way over to the island so Teyla and he stay at the bottom with Torren for a bit, while Ronon, Sergeant Banks and John race to the top. John loses which he blames on Ronon cheating by shoving him into the wall. They get into trouble but are allowed to stay and John once again stands alone to look out across the city. He leans on the ledge and lets the wind blow against his face. 

“You guys are not safe to be around,” Keller says, when she and Rodney join them, having scaled the stairs more sedately. She joins Sergeant Banks and Ronon but Rodney comes over to stand with him. 

“You know, I'd stop asking if you stopped running off on your own,” Rodney says, settling in shoulder to shoulder again. 

“I like the height,” John says. 

Rodney actually seems to know what he means which is nice. Words are, in John's experience, tricky bastards and more trouble than they're worth. He goes to join the others when Rodney does, though, because he's not going to push it to the point where he actually has to talk about his feelings. With Rodney. Teyla joins them but Kenaan stays on the ground with Torren, deciding not to risk vertigo on top of sea sickness. Keller and Sergeant Banks leave arm in arm, talking, heads together, and John leans against the wall with his team. 

“So,” Ronon says, turning to him, “you alright, Sheppard?” 

John glares at Rodney. 

“We were all a little worried, yesterday,” Teyla says, “you slept a long time and seemed unhappy.” 

“I'm better,” John says. “I'm fine.” 

John pushes away from the wall and starts down. He hears a clatter behind him and Ronon slides down to walk with him, big and warm at his back. 

“I'm good, Chewie,” John says again. 

“I know.” 

They have a few foot races, when they get back down, while they wait for the others. John loses consistently but he's not too bothered by it, he's not really competing. 

“Come on, Sheppard, you're faster than this,” Ronon grunts, breathless, grinning, after the fourth race. “You getting old?” 

John growls back and they go again and this time John runs as hard as he can. He beats Sergeant Banks but not Ronon. And he's pretty sure he only beat the Sergeant because she was surprised. 

“You were holding back, sir!” she says, “I've been hustled.” 

John gives her a lazy grin and slumps down into the grass. Torren is dumped on his chest by a distracted Kannaan and John plays 'being a helicopter' for a while, making Torren squeal and giggle. And drool on John's face. 

“Oh, gross,” Rodney says, leaning over them. 

John puts the kid on his stomach and wipes spit off his face before rolling to his feet, Torren against his shoulder, and looking around. Kanaan's over by the steps with Teyla, and they seem to be having an intense discussion. Sergeant Banks and Ronon are off doing something competitive and Keller and Rodney are in front of him. 

“Ready to head back?” he asks. 

“Waiting for Teyla,” Rodney says, “she's cross that Kanaan wussed out.” 

They share a brief joy in not being on the bad end of Teyla's temper but then she strides over for her child and they both school their faces. Teyla's in a bad mood the rest of the afternoon and John's pretty sure that the statue thing is the least of her problems but he doesn't ask and she doesn't offer information. When Kanaan asks him and Rodney to babysit so he can take her out, John agrees. 

“Why can't Ronon do it?” Rodney says. 

“He and Amelia are seeing who can fit most grapes in their mouth,” Kanaan says, steady as all the Athosians can be. “Next they plan on seeing who can hold most beers.” 

“Right,” Rodney says. “I forgot. Ronon's a decade younger than I am and still does irresponsible things at night.” 

John opens his mouth but Rodney thrusts Torren at him to shut him up. John watches Torren for a few hours then goes to knock on Rodney and Keller's door because he's tired and wants to try sleeping again, damn it, and it's not like he was the only one volunteered for babysitting duty. Rodney, to his credit, looks apologetic while he rants at John, and actually takes the kid. 

“Nightmares?” Rodney asks, spitefully in John's opinion. 

“Just adjusting,” John defends. Rodney smiles, suddenly, wide and soft of all ridiculous things. 

“Right. Go, email Dave, get some rest, try not to think the world is your fault.” 

Rodney shuts the door before John can respond. That is good because John has no idea what to say to that. He goes to do as he's told, which he blames on his training to follow orders. He sleeps like a log, only waking at nine because Rodney barges in. 

“Wha'?” John says, already out of bed and ready to go, tugging on his pants before he's even thinking. 

“Oh go back to bed, Colonel. I'm not breaking in because there's trouble, I'm breaking in to escape Jennifer.” 

Rodney flops onto John's bed and John follows suit, getting tangled in his jeans and struggling to get out of them. Rodney snorts and help get his feet out. 

“You're hopeless,” Rodney says, flopping back. 

“Yeah,” John agrees, grinning, too buzzed from a good night's solid sleep to care. 

“You slept.” 

“Yes, mother. You're going to drive me nuts if you don't stop this.” 

“Sorry, it's habit. Saving you from yourself, Colonel accident-waiting-to-happen. Also, shut up.” 

“So, hiding?” 

“Oh yeah. She's on a health kick. Last week it was all 'oh, Roddy, I love you as you are, oh, Roddy, if you say one more thing against the man I love, blah blah blah'. Now it's all 'Rodney, you can't eat pancakes, pizza, doughnuts and cotton candy for breakfast'.” 

John waits, but Rodney seems to be done. 

“Okay. Seems like she's right about a healthy breakfast.” 

“Please, you eat lucky charms for breakfast when you can and you add sugar.” 

John can't really argue with that. 

“Still, it's her prerogative,” John decides. 

“Thus the hiding. If I was there, I'd have to listen to her worrying about me. This way, I am not there and she can't be worried!” 

John laughs and biffs Rodney with a pillow. 

“Does she really call you Roddy?” he asks. 

“No, thank all the gods that anyone anywhere has ever worshipped. She attempted Meredith, once.” 

“No one tries more than once,” John says, mock seriously, and gets an elbow in the guts in thanks. 

Rodney's laughing, though, and he seems happy. John realises that recently that's what Rodney's been; happy. And excited and over excited and gleeful and smug, but mostly happy. 

“You seem good,” John manages to choke out. It's a bit close to feelings so as soon as he's said it he gets up and starts messing around with clothes and a towel and shower things. 

“Thanks, John,” Rodney says, giving his shoulder a squeeze as he passes from the bed to the door, then he scampers back. “No, wait! I didn't come here to squeeze feelings out of you. Hiding.” 

“Of course,” John says, retreating to the bathroom. 

He leaves Rodney in his room and goes for a run, then has to have another shower. He feels good, though, when he makes it to breakfast. He sits with Kanaan and Torren and they sort of don't talk which is almost talking, for the two of them. John tells Kanaan about the helicopter game, and Kanaan tells, softly, so John has to stretch to hear, about some Athosian games. Swimming in the ocean, rising to the sky. Running as soon as short legs can. 

“Today,” Sergeant Banks announces, when she appears with Ronon, “we are going to... da da da... go on a helicopter tour.” 

John groans, wondering if he can get out of it. Rodney comes and sits beside him and glares him into submission though. Later, as they're heading out, Rodney explains that Keller's seeing her friend again and he refuses to let John abandon him too. Up in the air, John finds himself enjoying it, at first. Flight, any kind of flight, still feels freeing even after all the years he's been doing it. But it starts to itch under his skin, the need to control, to fly, to take the bird higher. He scouts the area, through habit, finding landing spaces and hot spots, checking altitude and heading by instinct. 

“Rodney,” he says. “What's that?” 

He points randomly and it sets Rodney off, the ranting helps him to relax a little. Sergeant Banks sends him a sympathetic look, though, which isn't good. He forgets sometimes that soldiers see more than Rodney at times. He tunes out the recorded guide and listens to Rodney, focuses on the wind, the air, the feel of the flight. He still has a ton of adrenaline rolling through him when he hits the ground, as if he's ready for a fire fight. 

“Sorry, sir,” Sergeant Banks says, sidling up, “forgot it was your job.” 

“Habit, routine, shit load of adrenaline. We're good, you're just gonna have to race me so I can run some of this off.” 

They have a good natured slanging match as they find a park and a bit of grass and then Ronon joins them and they race again. John actually beats them both and it makes Ronon give him a strange look and hoist him into the air in his approximation of a hug. 

“Let go!” John yells, laughing, tugging and tipping and tripping them until they're wrestling, the sergeant egging them on and playing referee. 

John finds himself grinning most of the afternoon, still thrumming, energy and adrenaline making him itch to be moving. He goes for a long slow run when he gets back to the hotel, getting thirty miles under his belt before heading in to dinner with the others. He's running late and by the time he gets to the table, they've all shorn off into couples. He's welcome but they're busy with their conversations and he feels alone again. He goes to bed early. 

“You slept well again,” Rodney says, next morning, when he breaks into John's room and finds John already up and back from a run. 

“Yeah, I did. Yesterday was good.” 

“Admit it, you hated the helicopter.” 

“I didn't hate it. I just wanted to fly it myself.” 

They lounge on the bed for a bit, drinking coffee and discussing the crossovers between fine art and mathematics, due to one of Rodney's potential minions being an art and science major. John's playing devil's advocate whatever Rodney comes up with and it's driving Rodney nuts so they're quite loud when Keller comes in to remind them that there are people waiting on them for the day's plans. They decide over breakfast to move on from New York after one more mad whirl of tourist attractions and the day is good, John riding with Rodney and Keller in the evening. Slowly, though, as their vacation winds up, his friends pull towards their partners and more and more he's left doing his own thing. He returns to Atlantis alone, on the Sunday, everyone else staying for a couple more nights. John dumps his dufflebag in his room and goes to his office to catch up with Lorne and paperwork. He's halfway there when his phone rings. 

“Colonel Sheppard,” he answers, stepping out of the transporter and towards the office. 

He gets no further than the end of the corridor. He turns on his heel and goes to grab his bag again, heading back to the transport bay. 

 

***

Rodney is in a very bad mood when they finally, finally return to Atlantis. Jennifer kept them away as long as possible and the 'short' holiday has stretched into almost three weeks. Not to mention the fact that he got a breezy email from John saying he was taking a couple of weeks to catch up with Dave so he wouldn't see him for a while. Not that John was central to his happiness just that he was a good diversion. 

“Fine,” Rodney says, storming into Major Lorne's office, deciding ‘breezy’ is something he’s Just not buying afterall. “Fine. I give in. I care about him, obviously. Where is he? Because while I can buy that he'd take a couple of hours to catch up with his brother a couple of weeks is not realistic. This is John we're talking about!” 

“Um, hi, Dr Mckay,” Lorne says. “How are you? I'm good, enjoying the bureaucratic nightmare that is temporary command of this base. I am looking forward to handing all this stuff back to the Colonel. You know, I thought he fobbed most of his paperwork off on to me-” 

“He did!” Rodney says. 

“-but there's so much more than I thought.” 

“Oh. Right. Okay, yes yes, it's good to see you, Evan, lovely weather we're having and where is colonel Sheppard.” 

Rodney brings out the big guns: the look that has quelled a thousand review boards, CEOs, military goons and Phd advisory committees. Evan looks chagrined but nothing more. Not cowed and terrified. 

“He told me what he told you,” Lorne says. “Sorry.” 

“Great. He said that he thought the SGC might give him another duty, a temporary tour or something. Maybe they did and they're just hiding him in a cupboard. I should call Sam. I should, shouldn't I?” 

“Mckay- Rodney. Rodney, Colonel Sheppard is a big boy.” 

There's something there, something in Evan's eyes. Rodney pounces. 

“Ha! You know something. Tell me.” 

“Rodney-” 

“I control everything on this city. Doors, showers, temperature… sewers.” 

“Fine. I have been on the bad side of the science team before. Look, I know nothing. Wait! I know nothing: it's guess work. I've read his docketand some of the stuff on there... half of it is blacked out.” 

“You think he's been pulled up for some kind of black ops thing? That's ridiculous! We have clearance.” 

“Atlantis is first and foremost an international base and the longer it's gone on, the more international it's become. That means that while, yes, we have high clearance, there are still some things that the American military doesn't want us, Atlantis, a base that many international militaries have access to, to know.” 

“Fantastic. So they've sent him to some hell hole and we'll never know. They do realises that he's key to this mission don't they?” 

“I'm sorry, doc, but the mission at the moment is administrative. They know that a major is perfectly capable of handling it. I think that they gave him those two weeks to make sure that the city wouldn't fall apart without him. And it didn't. The timing is pretty exact.” 

Rodney goes boneless in his chair and shuts his eyes. This is supposed to be the easy bit, being on earth. It's supposed to be a holiday, it's supposed to be a break from the warzone. And now who knows where John's ended up. Rodney sighs and rubs his face. 

“I just hope they don't break him,” he mutters. It comes out less cross than he meant, less sharp and more like a soft plea. 

“John hasn't told me much about the things that he's done in the past,” Evan says, also softly. “I know enough to hope so, too. But he is a soldier and this is his job. He's career military, he's used to this.” 

“That makes it all better,” Rodney says, and this time the anger and frustration comes through. 

Evan sighs and gives him a sympathetic look, then offers to walk to lunch with him. The next three weeks pass very slowly. Rodney gets more and more bad tempered and Radek takes to either sending him out of the labs, sending him to remote parts of the city, or making him work in secluded areas. Especially when they have visitors. Rodney lets him because letting someone tell you what to do is not the same as giving up control. And besides, Radek lets him lambaste people when they come up with stupid ideas. 

Jennifer is patient with him and they make it work. Rodney ends up, after the third week, banging on her door until it opens and storming in, ranting and raving until there's spittle on his face and he's exhausted, he's so tired. He realises he's going to cry about a minute before it happens and he's embarrassed, but then Jennifer holds him tightly and tells him to let it out and it's grief and anger for everything that's happened, since the first step through the gate to the Pegasus galaxy. 

It takes hours for him to calm down and when he does Jennifer's lying with him, smiling, and she just says 'there you are' and smoothes his hair and kisses him and hugs him and then starts talking about how she's going to change the infirmary now that she has the time to really consider resources and the time to really talk with Carson. Rodney sleeps in her bed that night and waking up with her puts him in a better mood. He goes to find Carson to eat breakfast with. 

By the fifth week the senior staff are all back on Atlantis except for John and there's round two of IOA grillings and SGC 'interviews'. The rush and hurry is back and Rodney's too busy to worry about John, too busy to worry about anything except being on time and trying to appear like a regular human being who knows what he's doing. Instead of, as Jennifer puts it, an egomaniac on a power trip. Carson gets a good chuckle out of that one. Rodney has to spend a lot of time on paperwork, as well. He gathers all the science department heads and gets them a big office to crunch numbers, collate reports and gather all the work people have done, experimental, theoretical and physical, over the years. Essays and journal entries and articles, reports and files and programmes. They present everything to IOA over and over again. 

It takes three weeks for them to persuade the IOA that the research in the Pegasus galaxy is invaluable to Earth. At which point Rodney pauses to look around and realises that they're only one department, one part of Atlantis. Lorne is still running around looking frazzled and Richard Woolsey is seen striding about with huge teams of people and clipboards. The whole level below the gateroom is a hive of activity as the civilian admin, human resources and everything-else teams buzz about trying to get things sorted. 

Another month passes before Woolsey confides that he's pretty sure the decision is going to be to take Atlantis back to Pegasus and another three weeks after that before a tentative order to start preparing comes through. In the end, their date of departure is set for three months time. They have a party in the mess, civilian and military, and everyone gets incredibly drunk. The botanists sit on the balconies with a lot of pot and a lot of the marines sneak up there, too. Rodney sits with Ronon and Teyla, who he's finally found time to pay attention to. They're quiet, sipping their drinks, enjoying one another's company. Rodney actually nudges Ronon's shoulder, laughing when he gets punched in the arm in return. Teyla clinks their glasses together in a silent toast. They grin at one another. Finally, all kinds of silent communication are exhausted. Rodney sighs. 

“So,” he says. “John.” 

“I haven't heard from him,” Ronon growls. 

“Pretty sure that's not his fault,” Rodney says, lowering his voice. 

“Is he in trouble?” Teyla asks. 

“I don't think so, not any kind of trouble we understand or can do anything about,” Rodney says, scowling at the approaching scientist whose name he's forgotten. 

“Are you going to be doing recruiting, soon?” Teyla asks. 

“I'll be neck deep in resumes by next week.” 

“Let's have dinner, Monday and Friday,” Ronon says. 

So Rodney's not the only one feeling guilty for losing track of his team mates. Rodney and Teyla both agree and then they move on to other topics, updating each other on the last few months. It turns out Teyla and Ronon have been dragged into the IOA almost constantly, practically on call for questions. Teyla has become a sort of specialist for them and Ronon is their pet strategist. 

“At least they've shown some interest in the galaxy's history?” Rodney tries. Ronon snorts and punches him again. 

They all assume that John will be back before they go but as the months pass and he's still not there they start to worry. Woolsey starts interviewing other 'candidates' at the IOA board and Rodney descends into such deep anger even Jennifer can't pull him out of the blackness. Months become weeks and soon it's only a week before they leave. Carson's set to fly the city, Colonel Mitchell is still deciding if he wants the command but Rodney's pretty sure he's stalling for Sheppard, they're all stocked up and personnel are aboard the last furloughs running out. 

Rodney's sat on the balcony above the gateroom, the one Elizabeth used to use to think, head back against the wall, trying to quell the fury that's been burning him inside out. He's breathing and counting the useless way Heightmeyer told him and he can feel, beneath the fury, sadness. He's sure that John's dead or as good as, otherwise he'd be here. Rodney stifles tears or anger or maybe even a sob, something, knowing that four days is too late and that John won't be coming. He's going to have to go back without him. Or stay and wait for him. 

“Rodney.” 

Rodney waves a hand at whoever it is hoping they'll get the hint and go away. It sounds like someone else hoarse with exhaustion wanting space. 

“Mckay.” 

“What?” 

Rodney snaps his eyes open, glaring. It's Carson and Rodney slumps, realising that he'd been hoping, somehow, that it was John. 

“It's John,” Carson says, an echo, and Rodney blinks, taking a moment to understand. 

“Oh,” Rodney says, dread settling to the river of fury. “He's dead, huh? The news finally came.” 

“No, lad, he's not dead. He's here.” 

“What?” 

“He arrived ten minutes ago in a helicopter. He's in Woolsey's office. I knew it was eatin' you up so I came to tell you.” 

Rodney stares at him for a really long time, then hauls himself to his feet and stumbles over, gripping Carson's arms. 

“He's here? He's alive?” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh, thank god. Thank god!” 

Rodney hugs Carson, making the man squeak. Carson takes a minute to get with it by which time Rodney's already away, halfway down the stairs, taking them two at once. He bursts into the office and is already well into a rant when he spots John, leaning on the table, giving Rodney a mild look of irritation. 

“Mckay,” John says, cutting off his diatribe. 

“I thought you were dead,” Rodney blurts out. John looks surprised, then apologetic, then he winces. 

“Ah, sorry.” 

“Sorry. He's sorry. Jesus, John! What the fuck?” 

“Wow, I've never heard you swear,” John says. 

“I think it's due, don't you? What were you thinking? Okay, okay, I know, orders and military and I'm a flyboy and a helicopter called my name, but couldn't you have given me anything? Your brother? Did anyone buy that? Really?” 

“I did go see Dave,” John says, looking affronted. 

Rodney can see, though. He can see how amused John is, can see the affection and laughter hiding in there. He can also see the lines of tiredness, sleepless nights marking John's face. And he can also see that he's actually interrupted something. 

“Uh, right. Fine. Be like that,” Rodney says, taking a seat. “Carry on.” 

John rolls his eyes, pushing away from the table. 

“As I was saying, Richard, I would like it if Major Lorne could be given the temporary command-” 

“Wait!” Rodney says, jumping up again. “Wait. Command? You're not coming? You're- you're leaving. Oh my god, you're leaving. You got a taste for helicopters, or helos or choppers or birds or whatever you idiots call them. Space not enough of a thrill? Or did you get tired of fighting the real baddies and decide killing humans was easier? Is that it? Oh, was that over a line? Well, sorry, but you abandoning us is not good enough!” 

“Temporary command, Rodney. Temporary. Jeez, do we have to do this here? I'm well aware of- stuff. Fine. But not here, okay? Temporary command, okay?” 

“I'll talk to the IOA, John,” Woolsey says, cutting in. “I think there will be no problem. They took a long time looking for a replacement and Colonel Mitchel is still dilly dallying. Caldwell has said he'll do it if Mitchell won't but there are others on the list ahead of him. Anyway, I'll do everything I can. If you would like to go rest we can talk tomorrow.” 

“Thanks, Richard. Rodney? Coming?” John says shouldering a duffel bag and grabbing a crutch that Rodney didn't notice, leaning heavily on the latter as he leaves the office. 

“They broke you. I knew it!” Rodney crows, falling into step, wrestling the bag away from John and passing it off to Ronon, who's waiting with Teyla outside. 

“Hi guys,” John says. 

“Sheppard,” Ronon says. “Good to see you.” 

“It is indeed,” Teyla says, smiling broadly. 

“Rodney was starting to doubt you,” Ronon adds. 

“I was not!” Rodney yells, “I wasn't, I was just worried! And so were you!” 

“Yeah, so what? I never doubted,” Ronon says. 

John snorts but then drops the crutch and slings and arm over Ronon's shoulders. He gets a good hug for it and a forehead touch from Teyla. Rodney slides under John's arm when they're done and John smiles at him. He acts as the crutch all the way back to John's rooms. He even settles John on the bed, though John won't tell them where he's hurt. Rodney elevates both legs and supports his arms with pillows, just in case. 

“I should call Jennifer,” he says, puttering about unpacking John's stuff. “Have her check you over.” 

“You've already made it so I can't possibly move,” John says, dryly. “You've completely smothered me in pillows. I could jump out of the window and have a soft landing.” 

“Yes, well, you wouldn't tell me anything,” Rodney snaps. “Which reminds me; you didn't tell me anything!” 

“I could hardly email you classified information, Rodney,” John says. 

“You could! We do it all the time!” 

“Wrong government,” John says. “They had me on a couple of extractions for teams who were where they shouldn't be. It's not... it was nothing important. Just some tight spots. They wanted an experienced pilot.” 

“They broke you! And you still haven't told me anything.” 

“If I gave you details it would mean nothing to you. I'm tired, and I hurt, and I don't have the patience to translate the jargon for you.” 

“Excuses.” 

“Seriously, it was just flying.” 

“You could have said no.” 

There's silence in the room while that sinks in. Because, yes, John is military and he is an experienced pilot and probably the best man for the job, tight spaces where creative thinking would help. But he is also commander of a big base and he's been in the SGC long enough that a tour elsewhere is unusual; he has enough clout at the SGC to ask them to get him out of that; flying extractions is below his pay grade. He could have said no. 

“It was an order,” John tries. 

“John,” Teyla snaps, and that's enough to shock them all. 

“Alright,” John says, sounding strained. “If it was important I could have said no. I could have pulled some string.” 

“Important? You almost missed- you almost got left behind, you cretin! Do you seriously have some kind of mental or learning problem?” 

“Rodney!” John says.

“We're going to talk about being politically correct right now? You almost got left on Earth. Mitchel was going to have your job! Cameron bloody Mitchell!” 

“He's a good-” 

“Don't you dare,” Ronon says, growling, advancing. John goes quiet again, fiddling with his ridiculous pillows. Rodney snatches one away in exasperation, out from under his ankle, and throws it at his head. 

“Ow,” John whines, clutching the missile to his chest and giving Rodney a hopeful look. 

“Still angry,” Rodney says. “Why? I thought Atlantis was important. That the team was. That we were. That I was.” 

John sighs. 

“It's so stupid,” he says. 

“Tell us,” Teyla says, gently now. 

“I won't hit you too hard,” Ronon says. Rodney sits on the bed by John's foot and doesn't look at him but he doesn't yell again. 

“Alright,” John says. “But I'm already beat up, okay? It's... it's really dumb. I was just feeling... left... you know. Gooseberry. Um... my place... yeah. Okay? I told you it was dumb!” 

“John, you got to ‘feeling’ and then gave up,” Teyla says. “We need more.” 

“Oh,” Rodney says, finally looking at John. 

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” John says, embarrassed enough for both of them. 

“What?” Ronon asks. 

“We were all caught up. With the others. And John was... not. Caught up. With anyone except us,” Rodney says. Teyla looks assessing. John winces and nods. 

“You're right,” Ronon says. “You're an idiot.” 

“Yeah,” Rodney says. Teyla nods. Ronon sighs and sits on the bed. 

“Outsiders, right?” Ronon says. 

“We are aliens,” Teyla says. “As you call it. Rodney is... Rodney. We get it. That you think we wouldn't...” 

“Alright,” Rodney says, clapping his hands. “Enough. Tomorrow, yeah?” 

Teyla and Ronon leave, giving John reassurance before they go. Rodney's about to follow but then he doesn't. He stays sat on the edge of the bed. 

“I missed my best friend,” Rodney says. “I'm sorry you were hurt but try acting like an adult next time.” 

“Sorry Rodney.” 

“They broke you but you almost broke me.” 

Rodney gets up with a jerk and leaves John alone. He feels a bit bad for it but all he wants is to be on his own. He can't even find it in himself to want Jennifer's company. He walks for a long time then stands on a balcony for a long time then goes to his quarters and lies on the bed for a long time. He ends up back at John's room, breaking in just in case the man's asleep. 

“Hey Rodney,” John says when Rodney sidles in. He's not asleep. He's got rid of the pillows and is lying on his right side, on top of the covers, still dressed. 

“Hi,” Rodney says. “I've been thinking. I've been angry for weeks, really really angry. Because we were going to leave you behind and you've brainwashed me into your 'leave no man behind' thing. Did you really decide to go because you were feeling left out, John?” 

Rodney stays by the door but John shifts and a hiss of pain escapes. It takes a lot of effort not to move closer. Rodney realises, when John shifts again, that he's trying to turn so he can see Rodney. 

“Would you-” John starts, then stops. Rodney moves round to the other side of the bed so John's facing him. 

“Thanks,” John says. “No, I didn't run off because I was ‘feeling left out’. It just made it easier not to say no. Following orders is the easiest way forward. I thought it'd be a few weeks, away from Atlantis, from everyone here, from the SGC and aliens.” 

“In a war zone.” 

“Uh, yeah. Flying helicopters. I haven't flown a chopper in a while and being up in that one in New York, I realised Imiss it.” 

“You have puddle-jumpers.” 

“It's different.” 

Rodney sighs and sits on the bed. John probably didn't have a single motivation for going, it was probably a mixture of everything. Just the right chemicals to cause the reaction, the exact equation. 

“Tell me where you're hurt so I can help you,” Rodney says. 

“What?” 

“Oh, you're lying on top of the covers in your clothes and shoes and even your damned jacket because it's comfy?” 

“Um.” 

“Come on.” 

“Left side. Shoulder, ribs, hip and thigh.” 

“Jesus.” 

Rodney and John work in silence, routine kicking in and allowing them to move in synch. They get John down to his t-shirt and pants, feet bare against the cover, before John huffs out a heavy breath and leans into Rodney's body, fingers clenching in his shirt. 

“Do you need a break?” Rodney asks. 

“I'm tired,” John says. 

It's as close to actually coming out and saying he's in pain as John's going to get so Rodney waits. He rubs up and down John's back, frowning when he finds new muscle tone under the shirt. He runs a hand across his shoulders and finds it there, too. 

“You been working out while throwing yourself into danger?” Rodney asks. 

“Shut up.” 

“Want to tell me anything about it?” 

“My co-pilot was really good.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Had an extraction turn into a body retrieval.” 

“Mm. 

“Picked up a couple of hot shot CIA guys in Pakistan.” 

“Hmm.” 

“Mostly, I was back in Afghanistan. Apart from the CIA guys.” 

“Don't the CIA usually have their own extraction teams?” 

John doesn't answer. Rodney sighs and shifts John a bit so he can get at his BDUs. He gets the pants open and John groans quietly, lying back on the bed so Rodney can slide them off. Rodney sucks in a sharp breath when he reveals the mottled bruising that runs down John's thigh from under his boxers. 

“Jesus.” 

“Sorry,” John mutters, head buried in his pillow. 

Rodney gently moves the fabric of John's underwear so he can get a better look at the damage, and finds a mess of scabs and more deep bruising. He pushes up the t-shirt and finds more black bruising, blood under the scraped, sore looking skin. 

“You're like one big bruise.” 

“I'm healing. They kept me in Afghanistan for a while because I dislocated my hip. I wasn't supposed to be there.” 

“Right.” 

“I'm fine. It's just bruises, now. And healing ribs.” 

“Did you crash?” 

That sparks something, John's eyes opening, mouth twisting up into a genuine grin. Rodney recognises pride and rolls his eyes. 

“Nope. Took a shot but we got back to base. Just kind of slammed me.” 

“You're crazy.” 

“Little bit, yeah.” 

Rodney laughs and puts John's clothes to rights, covering him up. 

“Better?” he asks. 

“Yeah. Thanks for coming back.” 

Rodney sighs and threads his hand into John's hair, finding the cowlicks, scruffing it up more. 

“You need a shave,” he says. 

“Mm.” 

“And a haircut.” 

“Growing it.” 

“Aw, did they make you cut it properly for once?” Rodney asks, laughing again. John's arm waves in an attempt to hit him but misses and gives up. “Go to sleep, Colonel,” Rodney says. 

It works, usually. Something about being ordered. Rodney likes to think it's also partly because he's there, or because John's safe at least. Once John goes limp Rodney sits with him for a bit, doing a more thorough exploration of damaged flesh and deciding he is going to get Jennifer to check it out. She's probably a better doctor than the idiots in Afghanistan. Eventually he gets up to leave but he pauses in the hallway, wondering if he should go to his quarters or Jennifer's. She might be expecting him, tonight. He made it a habit to go to her when he was upset or stressed so it would make sense. He doesn't really want company, though, and he feels pretty good. Tired, still a slow burning anger settled in his gut, but much better. He no longer wants to rip the world apart around him. He goes to his own quarters. 

In the morning, Rodney wakes up on the usual wave of fury. He has an angry shower and shoves his toothbrush over his teeth hard enough to make his gums bleed. He gets half way through a rant in the labs, Radek looking shell shocked and surprised, before he remembers that John's back. He stops halfway through a shouted word, arm in the air, gesturing with his half-full mug of coffee. 

“Oh,” Rodney says. 

He puts the coffee down, shoves his pile of paperwork onto Radek, and wanders off towards John's room. Radek mutters after him in Czech. Rodney understands enough to make a mental note to avoid the labs for the day if he wants to keep his dignity. He knocks before barging in on John this time just in case he's naked or something. John isn't naked but he is stood in nothing but a clean pair of boxers, hair dripping onto his shoulders. 

“Hey, Rodney,” John drawls, drawing out his vowels on purpose. 

“Shut up, I forgot you were back and got half way through a really good bashing of Radek's latest theory, and then I remembered and got derailed. Now I can't go into the labs all day. This is going to slow up my work, Sheppard.” 

“All my fault?” 

“Obviously. Do you want a hand, or do you want to go to your meeting damp?” 

John attempts to dry his hair one handed, balancing his weight off his left side, but hands the towel over after nearly toppling into the desk. 

“This is gonna suck,” John says. 

Then he tips his head towards Rodney, letting Rodney rub his scalp. It makes him pretty much purr with happiness, which makes Rodney snort at him. It's ridiculous; the military leader of Atlantis reduced to a puddle of goo just by having his head rubbed. 

“Okay, this bit doesn't suck,” John says. 

“Get dressed, you hedonist. I skipped a good rant for this I'm at least getting breakfast out of it.” 

“You may have to help with my socks and boots. I am so stiff after sitting scrunched in the chopper, yesterday. Wish they'd have at least let me fly.” 

Rodney sits on the bed and uses John's laptop to check his emails while John dresses. He keeps one eye on the idiot, making sure he doesn't need help. 

“Colonel?” Rodney says, looking up to find him lost in thought. 

“Hmm?” 

“Got an email from Mitchell. He's horrifically glad he wasn't stalling for no reason.” 

“Oh. Good. Um?” 

“You alright?” 

John turns, a jumper in one hand, frowning. 

“What? Yeah, I'm fine. Just, isn't this yours?” John waves the jumper around. Rodney looks at the proffered jumper. 

“Huh. Yeah, it is. How'd you get it?” 

“Dunno.” 

John pulls it on anyway, bitching about sore ribs. His head pops out with his hair going all directions and Rodney unsuccessfully stifles laughter. 

“You really need a haircut, John.” 

“Nope.” 

“Ready?” 

John wriggles his bare feet at Rodney before sitting on the edge of his bed expectantly. 

“Fine, but this is a favour, it will not become routine,” Rodney warns, getting down onto his knees to be-sock and shoe his friend,. “My knees won't take it.” 

“Should be fine later; Im just stiff, Mckay.” 

“Fine. Fine! Ha! I do not think that word means what you think it means.” 

John grins happily down at him and sighs a contented sigh. 

“I missed your geekery. Oh, by the way. I really did visit Dave,” John says, face going serious. “between two deployments. I sprained my ankle playing football on base and got sent state side, mostly because they were pissed off with me.” 

“How is he?” 

“Fine. He asked about you, apparently you made an impression the time you answered my phone.” 

“I thought it was mine! All the phones they gave us looked the same.” 

“Yeah. He's pretty good, actually. He misses Dad but he really likes being in control of the company and not having to give in. He can have his own ideas and take it his own way. Which is good for him.” 

“Mm. You want these done properly?” Rodney asks, holding up the laces. 

“Nah, just loop 'em round or something.” 

Rodney ties them round John's ankles, not bothering to lace them to the top, and does neat little bows. John sniggers at his neat little bows. 

“Be nice, I just put your shoes on,” Rodney says. “Next time I might decide to tie your laces together.” 

“I was playing football to show off. There was... this... um. There was this guy.” 

Rodney pretends to be busy with something, getting to his feet and stowing John's laptop. He makes an affirmative noise but doesn't pay too much attention. He's perfected this art over the years just as John has for him. John doesn't like to talk but he will, sometimes, talk at Rodney. To tell him he's bisexual, the first time. That had been awkward. John had spent a lot of time in the gym avoiding Rodney and he'd blushed whenever they met for a bit. It's gotten better since. 

“A major. He came state side with me, we had a few days before going separate ways.” 

“Nothing major with the Major?” 

“Har har. No, but it was... it... um... nice.” 

“Good. Breakfast?” 

“Please,” John says breathing out in a huge relieved rush. 

They walk shoulder to shoulder, Rodney matching John's limping pace. It speeds up as John loosens with moving and Rodney's glad that at least some of the pain really has been stiffness. He's still going to con John into going to get checked out by Jennifer but he's more reassured now. Teyla and Ronon are already at a table in the mess hall, sitting with Amelia. Rodney nods John over and goes to get them trays, deciding that he'll fetch and carry to avoid John's crutch menacing everyone and making chaos. He tells the guys serving that one tray's for John, though, and gets extra fruit for John and an extra muffin for himself. As well as the good coffee. 

“Using me for your own nefarious purposes,” John says. 

“I got you fruit, shut up,” Rodney says, shoving the bowl at John. John grins and pokes at the pineapple that's on top, looking for bits of mango and banana. He makes a pleased noise when he comes across kiwi. 

“Did you sleep well?” Teyla asks. 

“Yeah,” John says. “Actually it was good, being back on the ocean. Bit weird, though. I felt like I was on a ship with the rocking thing. Even though Atlantis doesn't rock. It's much more temperate, too, though the hospital I was at had air con.” 

“Was it hot where you were?” Ronon asks. 

“Desert. Lots of sand, lots of sun. Pretty much it. Sand and sun,” John says. “Sergeant Banks, good to see you.” 

“You too, sir. We were beginning to worry we'd be stuck with Mitchell,” Amelia says. 

Rodney's pretty sure John still thinks of Amelia as 'sergeant Banks', even in his head. It will probably take a pretty long time for that to wear off, if it ever does. 

“Sergeant Banks,” Rodney says. “Calling him 'sir' will only encourage him.” 

Amelia grins at him. 

“Is that so, Dr Mckay? What do you advise?” she says. 

“Of course, there's always the piranhas,” Rodney says, recalling a conversation about a previous CO of hers. 

It makes her laugh in a way which promises fish in his future but he's glad that he can get along with Ronon's partner, as it looks to be a long term thing. He's not good with people and he'd been a bit worried. He looks away and catches sight of Jennifer, he waves her over and she kisses him good morning sitting beside him, he gives her his attention. She still looks beautiful, even after months of seeing her day in day out. 

“Sorry about... you know,” Rodney says, taking a long sip of his coffee. 

“No worries,” she says, “I know you, Rodney, remember? I like you for some strange reason. That includes your moods.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Is it better now he's back?” She says, lowering her voice. 

“Yeah,” Rodney admits, examining her face, looking for the flash of jealousy or uncertainty he's sometimes found before when it comes to his friendship with the Colonel. There's nothing, though, just acceptance, and he relaxes. “It really is. He told me a bit about where he was, too, which makes it easier.” 

“You just like being in control,” she teases. 

“Obviously. Look, I'm gonna sneak him into the infirmary later if I can. See if you can catch us, not Dr Biro? I like her and all but you're better at keeping him in one place.” 

“Any heads up?” 

“Left side.” 

They break apart, turning to talk to other people. Rodney feels close to her even when he's not looking at her or paying her attention which is a nice feeling. He's a bit worried that 'nice' is what he mostly feels around her these days. He'd thought the settled feeling he started to get with her was good but it somehow feels more like falling into friendship than falling into love had felt. He pushes that away and turns to listen to Ronon and John bicker about Mad Max films. In the end it's pretty easy to get John to go see Jennifer; Rodney just says he wants to eat lunch with her and seeing as he and John have been hiding from Radek together, it's easy to drag him along. Radek found Rodney at breakfast and had a go at him and John had gotten caught in the backlash and ended up on the Czech's bad side after insulting him in Pashto and Farsi- 

“I only meant that he was loud,” John had complained. 

-so they'd been hiding in the jumper bay, checking them all before they left earth. When they reach the infirmary, Jennifer says she'll be a minute and for them to wait, and Rodney hoikes himself up onto a gurney, leading by example. John takes the next one over and leans his right elbow onto his knee, fist against his forehead the way he does when he has a headache. Jennifer comes over, bouncing and bright. 

“Oh, Colonel! Great, I wanted to give you a check up before we head out and you're in just the right place. Hang tight for ten minutes,” she says, already pulling the scanner over and pushing him to lie back. 

The dark scowl John sends Rodney's way tells him he's not falling for it but Rodney just holds up his hands and shrugs innocently, engaging nurse Watson in conversation about Scotland. Carson comes over after a minute and John talks Jennifer into letting him take over. Rodney makes a note of the way John's body relaxes at the sound of Carson's soft accent. 

“How's it going, doc?” John asks, actually facing Carson. 

“Mm? Och, lad, dislocated hip? That'll need an eye kept on it. Whoever popped it back did a good job.” 

“Yeah, she was a good doctor. Did you get to see Scotland?” 

“Nah, not this time. Bit too much, not being able to see ma family.” 

“Oh. I forgot.” 

Carson smiles at him and pokes a bit hard at his sore shoulder. 

“Sorry, I'm stuck doing research these days. I don't do shifts down here anymore,” Carson says. “I'm out of practise.” 

“Working on the Hoff virus?” John asks. 

“Yes, we've made some good progress. I've got a team working with me, while we're on earth. Actually they're off today, that's why I'm back down here.” 

“Are they getting you to fly us back?” 

“As it stands. Ribs are healing, that's good. Sit up so I can check your lungs.” 

John leans into Carson's shoulder without hesitating and Rodney decides that next time, he'll just go with Carson instead of going to Jennifer first. Not that John doesn't respect her, she's earned his respect more than once, but he's so easy with Carson. It's good. 

“Hey,” Jennifer says, leaning into Rodney's side. 

“Oh, hi,” he says, turning away from John. 

“Let's fob him off onto Carson as often as we can. He's like a baby for him. It's a miracle.” 

“That's hard earnt,” Rodney says, but he agrees. John eats out of Carson's hand. 

“Rodney, we're done here,” Carson says. “The colonel tells me you're taking him to lunch?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Rodney says. “We came to get Jennifer and he got roped into a check up.” 

“Keep telling me that and I might believe it,” John mutters, pulling his shirt and jumper on and doing up his belt. “You coming, Carson?” 

“If I'm not needed here?” Carson turns to Jennifer, who looks surprised but waves her hand in invitation. 

Rodney walks with Jennifer, arms linked, and again gets the feeling of nice. 

“We should talk,” Jennifer says, looking up at him. “Sometime. Catch up with one another.” 

“Tonight? I'll come by after checking on John.” 

“That sounds good, Rodney,” she says. 

John talks Carson into spending the afternoon showing John around the new tower of living quarters they've opened up during their downtime. Rodney had worked on the project but not a lot; he'd left it to the environmentalists who had a whole thing about solar and wind power. It's actually kind of brilliant because they've put into place a lot of power savers by using the ocean and the sun. It'll extend the life of the ZPMs a lot. 

Rodney spends the afternoon in his office and with the civilian admin team making sure everyone's NDAs, contracts, and other paperwork is signed. He has to talk to Rosa about insurance and wills and getting affairs in order and it's a bit depressing but they've done it before and they'll do it again. He agrees to be in the meeting with the few who haven't got things sorted yet. 

“I'm getting soft,” Rodney says, barging into John's room. 

“I'm moving house,” John says. “Isn't that nice?” 

“Oh, did Richard give you the lecture about senior staff having to give the impression of importance? I got the same thing.” 

“Yeah. It is nice actually. I'm going to live at the to and there's a great view.” 

“Hey, on the sixth floor, with the circular walkway and the sort of garden in the middle? All the windows?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Those are nice rooms. You get a kitchen, too.” 

“Shared kitchen. I'm number eight b.” 

“Really? I’m eight a! Cool, we'll be neighbours.” 

John's moving much more freely tonight and manages to undress himself but he doesn't ask Rodney to leave, so Rodney doesn't. He stretches out on John's bed and waits. 

“There's a new group of botanists. Parish got promoted to department head and is bringing in a couple of experts on some of the stuff we've found that's edible. He was going on and on about splicing,” Rodney says. “They were in the mess at dinner, high as kites on dope.” 

“Uh oh. Lorne won't like that. I'll have to send out a memo reminding people that this is a military base.” 

“Fun ruiner.” 

“Yeah, sure, but if we're invaded, high botanists are going to be a problem. And if they share with the marines we could be screwed. I'll talk to David about making sure it's limited and give him an unofficial okay for special occasions.” 

“You've become quite the bureaucrat.” 

“Blame Caldwell,” John says, stretching out beside Rodney with a wince. “Jeez, I'm still sore.” 

“Did Woolsey talk the SGC into letting Lorne stand in till you're back on duty?” 

“Yeah, apparently Mitchell wasn't the only one stalling. The IOA caved easily when three generals went at them.” 

“Three? O'Niel, Landry, and...?” 

“A French guy. Apparently, I've made an impression on Johnson. French Johnson, who was just promoted, by the way. And the general owes him a favour.” 

“Mitchell say anything about Mitch, this time round?” Rodney asks. 

“Yeah. Apparently his kid was asking him about me the last time he went home. Not by name, but Mitch mentioned his CO and the kid wanted to know a bit more about him. Me. The CO, who is me.” 

“That's good?” 

“Mary still won't have anything to do with me and she tells Saul a lot of crap about me. Saul was asking Cam because he thought his Mum might be biased.” 

“Intelligent kid.” 

“Yeah. He didn't get that from Mitch!” 

Rodney snorts, then rolls off the bed and to his feet. 

“At least Cameron stalled, and still likes you.” 

“Yeah. I should thank him.” 

“I'll pass it on for you. I have to go, promised Jennifer I'd stop by. You be okay?” 

“Yes. Thanks, Rodney.” 

“Night.” 

Rodney leaves John sacked out on the bed and makes his way through the city. Atlantis is bustling: last minute preparations; last minute trips to the mainland; excitement buzzing through the halls. Jennifer's already moved to the new tower and the transports are being tested so Rodney has a long trek up sixteen flights of stairs. Jennifer's on the first floor of residential quarters, giving up the view for bigger rooms and a personal kitchen as well as a small dining/living room. Rodney lets himself in the unlocked door and joins her on the sofa. 

“Hey,” he says, kissing her. 

“Is the colonel all settled?” 

“Woolsey talked him into moving, too.” 

Jennifer laughs and kisses Rodney properly hello. 

“I can imagine that was entertaining to watch. Do you think he'll drag that tiny bed with him?” she asks. 

“Not if we can help it. Might get Zalenka to screw it to the floor so he can't.” 

“Good plan. Or maybe just get Ronon to sit on it.” 

They chuckle over that for a bit and then fall into silence. It's comfortable but becomes awkward, which is the first hint that not everything is fine. Rodney winces and opens his mouth to ask, but then shuts it again. 

“Um,” Jennifer starts. “This isn't me breaking up with you.” 

“That kind of makes it sound like it is,” Rodney says, defensive. 

“Well it isn't. I do want to talk to you, though. About... about us. About... I haven't felt like... I mean, it's been hard. And suddenly I feel connected to you again but it's because of Colonel Sheppard. Which is... uncomfortable. For me.” 

“It's not his fault.” 

“Nor is it yours, Rodney. No one's done anything wrong. You were angry and worried, I get that. And now you're not. That's not really the problem here, is it?” 

“No, no,” Rodney sighs and rubs his face. “I really like you.” 

“I know.” 

“But...” 

“Yeah.” Jennifer stops and they look at each other. “I really did fall in love with you. And I know that we did have that.” 

“Yes, yes! We did.” 

“I guess I kind of thought this was it for us. In the other timeline, the one John saw, we were married. I thought that was us,” she says.

“Me too. It's not?” Rodney asks, though it isn’t really a question.

“I don't think so. Like I said, I'm not breaking up with you.” 

“No, me neither.” 

“What shall we do?” 

They talk for a bit, debating the options. In the end they decide to give up and just have sex. Because the sex is good, that's always a good part. It goes well, they have orgasms, but their kisses are fond, but not passionate. They fall asleep together, which is nice. And waking up with her is as good as it ever was, he morning breath stale but her morning orgasms good. Great, even. They both walk to breakfast grinning and content. 

“Not quite ready to give this up, if I'm honest,” Rodney says. 

“A convenient bed, a friendly partner, good orgasms. Nope, me neither,” Jennifer agrees. 

“How about... a sort of...we still get to sleep together and have sex.” 

“Sounds like a mess waiting to happen. Let's do it. I insist on regular check ins, though, which means the dreaded talking.” 

Rodney laughs, linking their hands. 

“I'm better at that than Sheppard, at least.” 

“A rock is better at that than Sheppard, Rodney.” 

They're at the mess so their conversation is put on hold and they both head for the coffee with purpose. Jennifer, Rodney's found, can be as obsessed with food and coffee as him. In Texas she managed to eat as much barbecue as he did. She's gotten over her shyness and loads her tray without reservation, which gets her a respectful look from Ronon. 

“Morning, Amelia,” Rodney says. “How are the fish?” 

“Growing teeth, Rodney,” Amelia says. 

Rodney snorts, passes her the croissant he got and the jam. They settle into silence, Ronon grunting something now and then that makes Amelia laugh. Probably about training or fighting or something. John clunks in when Rodney's finishing up his eggs and slumps onto the bench next to him. 

“Hey, you look like shit,” Ronon rumbles. “Want me to get you a tray?” 

“Uh, sure,” John mutters. “Morning, sergeant. Doc.” 

Amelia gives him a half salute and Jennifer leans forward to smile before diving back into her food. Rodney narrows his eyes and waits for the others to get distracted again before leaning close. 

“I take it you slept badly,” he says. 

“Go away, Mckay,” John says back, nudging him with an elbow. “Not in the mood to be nagged.” 

“Fine.” 

John gives him a surprised look but Rodney just waves Carson over and gives John a smug look. 

“Alright!” John says, quickly, lowering his voice. “Just a nightmare, and it was this morning. I took a nap which turned out to be a bad idea, because I think I might have just fallen back into it. Please leave me alone.” 

“Hey, Carson, join us,” Rodney says. “We are just debating whether sleeping later makes you more tired.” 

Carson beams around at them and ignores Rodney, starting in on the progress he made last night and then going on and on about his new quarters. Ronon dumps a tray of fruit and toast in front of John, which tells Rodney that he noticed John wasn't feeling great, too, and then pokes Amelia until she gets up and says goodbye. 

“So,” Jennifer says, interrupting Carson. “Everyone looking forward to a return to Pegasus tomorrow?” 

“God, yes!” Rodney says. “Escape from the eagle eye of the IOA. Though, I will admit that the down time has not been all bad.” 

“Me too,” Jennifer says. “Seeing my family was great.” 

Carson winces which makes John toss him an orange. Rodney scowls as Carson starts to peel it. 

“Are you trying to kill me?” he asks. “You know how allergic to those things I am. Why did you bring it to the table, John? Are you cross with me? Honestly, this is passive aggression. No, it's all out aggression!” 

“Relax,” Carson says. “It's nowhere near you. Besides, your citrus allergy is mild. It's bee stings that send you into anaphylaxis.” 

“I'll have you know-” 

“The time you were seven was a panic attack. The time you were thirteen you were stung by a bloody bee! Shut up and let me enjoy this,” Carson says. “I haven't had an orange for ages.” 

“Fine,” Rodney says, with a sniff. “If I die I am blaming you.” 

“Be my guest,” Carson says. “But speaking of your continued good or bad health, you should start carrying power bars again. Get into the habit. You really do have hyperglycaemia.” 

“I talked to Lorne about that,” John says. “He passed it on to the ground supply officer. I'm not sure who we have appointed to the role because Davies is staying on earth with Marie to start a family.” 

“Marie?” Rodney asks. “Davies?” 

“Lieutenant Davies,” John says. “She was a 1st LT when we first came through, she lead the second platoon.” 

“Right, right! Then she got that promotion and you shoved him into supply.” 

“It's a good job, Rodney,” John complains/ “Marie is the nurse who stitched you up when you fell down the stairs.” 

“Oh,” Rodney says. That humiliating incident is not something he's going to forget in a hurry. 

Rodney spends the rest of the day checking things and he spends a lot of time with Evan but not a lot with anyone else. He does go by the labs before dinner to make sure Radek has everything ready to go in terms of the physical city structure and runs into Kanaan, who's looking for Teyla, in the hallway. He goes to Jennifer's quarters after dinner and they spend the evening with laptops and radios, both checking in with their departments and co-ordinating with other heads. 

“Should you check on John?” Jennifer says, between calls. 

“Probably, I'll just finish up with this. I need to go down and see Captain Raleigh anyway because he's commander for the company who are going to be our scouting party when we land, check out the planet. I need to brief him before we take off just in case things go wrong.” 

“Do we have any new pilots joining us? I remember that being a problem last time.” 

“No idea, not my problem or responsibility. I assume Lorne's gone to the trouble of finding us some ATA pilots with some F-302 experience but who knows? Things that end have been up in the air.” 

“You're still pissed, huh?” 

“Pretty sure we're going to stage a team rant when John's up to it,” Rodney says, finishing up. He shuts his laptop down and heaves himself up. 

“You sleeping here tonight?” Jennifer asks. 

“Up to you.” 

“Morning sex might be a nice way to start the journey.” 

Rodney grins and leaves with a bounce in his step, the promise of sex getting him through the incredibly boring briefing with Captain Raleigh. The marine is polite but he doesn't like Rodney and Rodney doesn't like him. They get through it without a shouting match and the captain only rolls his eyes once so Rodney's still in a good mood when he makes it to John's quarters. He knocks and waits this time. 

“Not mother henning me, anymore?” John snarks when he enters. 

“Nope. You're too annoying. Need anything before I head to bed for sex with my girlfriend?” Rodney asks, cheerfully. 

“Too much information, buddy. And no I'm good. Unless you feel like going and beating Lorne around the head with something. He forgot to ask the SGC to commission me a new gunny so that means we have to do a bit of shuffling.” 

“Not his fault,” Rodney sing-songs, pointing at John. 

“Not mine, either. Mitchel's, for dilly dallying, as Richard calls it. Richard's going to try and get someone sent through with the Deadalus. In the meantime, I'm going to expand a couple of roles to cover the gap and our captains and LTs are just gonna have to step up.” 

“I think I'll give Evan chocolate, he's probably wracked with guilt.” 

“Actually, he's just pissed at me.” 

Rodney pauses, because John sounds tired. 

“You're totally crap at people, aren't you?” Rodney says, actually sympathetic about it. 

“It's not my fault. I... it's weird! Atlantis is weird!” 

“I think you'll find that your people actually giving a shit about you isn't what's abnormal.” 

“It is! Anyway. Everyone's pissed.” 

“Black ops scares people because your government is batshit insane and the operations people know about are scary as hell and pretty awful. The ones that are secret? You could be doing anything.” 

“Huh.” 

“It's all just flying, to you, isn't it? It's just planes and choppers and the sky.” 

“I like flying.” 

“It's a bit more complicated for most people. You know, the whole blood and dying thing and how is it I am telling someone about people this is like the blind leading the blind. God, flying and loyalty. You're like a wind up toy.” 

“Hey! I am a complex person.” 

“You're a sociopath. Anyway, Evan will forgive you. You just scared us, both of us. All of us. Give it a chance.” 

“You mean let you all yell at me.” 

“What was the nightmare, this morning?” 

“Lyle.” 

“Ours are you. For the months you were gone, our nightmares were you.” 

John doesn't say anything, he just looks at Rodney, miserable and small and pained. Rodney shoves him onto the bed and sits with him for a bit, ranting about math and Captain Raleigh. Who John, of course, likes. Rodney feels a swell of affection and tucks his hand in against John's shoulder, finding skin and rubbing with his thumb. 

“Hey, I'm getting to a point I'm no longer mad,” he admits, letting his voice be soft and cracked. 

“We good?” 

“Always.” 

John relaxes, face against Rodney's hip, and lets out a funny, snuffling breath that might be a laugh. Rodney rubs his thumb over the warm skin until John settles more, then slips out and returns to Jennifer. 

“You're worried about him,” she says, in the dark, after orgasms. 

“He's hurt,” Rodney admits, relying on the confidentiality of their relationship as lovers, friends and doctor/patient to keep this between them. “He's worried about something, upset about something. I don't know. I think it's coming back, people being cross with him, the return to Pegasus. He was gone for months and things changing. Dave might have said something to him. I don't know.” 

“He'll talk?” 

“When he's ready. He probably hasn't noticed yet, he's useless.” 

Rodney snorts and rolls them into a cuddle. They'll roll apart in the night, shifting to their own sides of the bed but Rodney's discovered Jennifer likes to snuggle after orgasming. Apparently it's tingly. Her body's familiar, colder than usual. He pulls the blanket over them and tells her about the rocket he built at school once, a much more cheerful story than the nuke and the CIA one. She settles and they lie back down, her the little spoon, he sleeps before she does, sliding into the cool darkness without conscious thought about sleep. He wakes to an orgasm which is strange and disorientating, but kind of awesome. Jennifer sticks her head out from the covers to grin and laugh at him, teasing him for coming before he's properly awake and threatening to call it a wet hallucination or something. He rolls on top of her to try and shut her up and bring her off. They walk to breakfast cheerful and hand in hand again and are met with groans from John and accusations of being disgustingly sweet. 

“Actually, it's the orgasm not the company that makes me happy,” Jennifer says, peppy and bouncy even before coffee. 

John throws a muffin at her head which Ronon snaps out of the air and eats it, despite John sending him the most pathetic look, muttering about giving his own to Amelia. 

“Sergeant Banks, is it an abuse of power if I order you to give me the muffin Ronon gave you?” John asks. 

“Yes, sir, I'm afraid so,” Amelia says. “Rodney, tell him about my fish.” 

“She's growing fish with really big teeth in a tank in the botany labs. Apparently she feeds them dynamite and grit and they're going to be honorary marines,” Rodney says. 

Amelia nods seriously and John narrows his eyes at her but Lorne appears before he can get the story out of them. Amelia gives him a sharp salute, getting to her feet, and John grumbles about how she never does that for him. 

“Sir, I would be up and down like a yo-yo. Besides, you promised me special dispensation, if I dated Ronon, which I am doing.” 

“I forgot about that. Wasn't I high on pain meds at the time?” 

“No, sir. You might have been a bit up on adrenaline, though.” 

“That counts as cheating. Isn't that cheating, Major?” 

“Sir,” Lorne says. “I need you to sign a couple of things before we can prepare to leave. I also need you to brief the marine captains about their duties, and the rank whose duties you expanded need to be called in for a meeting. 

“I want you to go over strategy with the gunnery sergeants and I also want you to talk to the 2nd Lieutenants to make sure that they understand their responsibilities will be expanded in Pegasus. After that you have to go over the gate teams with me and make sure they all read up on the reports, make sure gate team leaders are all briefed and have briefed their teams. 

“This afternoon you and I have a meeting with Mr Woolsey, to go over everything, before our five o'clock departure time. Doctor Becket wants you there for the pre-flight, Command Sergeant Major Robbins has a problem that he needs a commanding officer to solve that I refuse to touch with a barge pole and your new NCO major is having issues integrating Pegasus fighting styles into his plans. Captain Lakeson says the guy's an arsehole and has asked for you to attend a meeting to back him up.” 

“I thought I was off duty,” John grumbles, but he finishes his breakfast and clunks gamely after Lorne. 

“Is he really doing all that?” Jennifer asks, looking worried. 

“Most of it he'll just sit in on meetings,” Rodney says. “It's Lorne's way of getting back at him. I assume this is mostly to get him sitting in meetings with Robbins, who drives everyone nuts because he's pernickety and pedantic. He's a great NCO for John and Lorne because they're both pretty haphazard in their dealings with personnel.” 

“Okay. As long as he's not doing too much. He really shouldn't be on duty.” 

“The lad will be fine,” Carson says, joining them. “Evan ran over his list with me to make sure his revenge was sweet but not damaging. Most of it will just send the Colonel to sleep with boredom.” 

Jennifer relaxes and the finish up quickly, all of them heading their different ways to get things set. Rodney's leaving most of the administration and supplies stuff to Woolsey's people but Rosa keeps radioing him ordering him to attend meetings and Radek keeps kicking him out of the labs for trying to check things Radek already checked. In the end he ferrets out John in Sergeant Major Robbins' office and knocks. 

“Come,” Robbins says. 

John's sat by the desk looking as bored as Carson promised, facing all three gunny sergeants. Roak looks about ready to rebel as well and keeps sending John pleading glances. Rodney grins. 

“Sorry, Robbins,” he says. “I was hoping to grab the Colonel for lunch. I want to go over inventory for the labs with him while we eat.” 

Robbins beams in delight at the promise of more nit picking in John's future and breaks up the meeting, giving John a stack of paperwork before letting him go. 

“Please don't make me,” John begs, as they walk down to the mess. 

“Obviously. Like anyone's letting me anywhere near anything today. They think I'll shout and delay things. Because they know they've missed things. Don't worry, though, I've hacked into the system and I've got a list for Radek and Rosa and-” 

“I get the picture. Can we detour past my office to dump this stuff? Maybe Lorne'll be there and he can do this.” 

“Did Robbins tell you his problem?” 

“Yes,” John says, darkly. “Bored marines are shit stirrers. I sent ten men to cool off in the cells this morning.” 

“Robbins couldn't do that?” 

“He could have but the platoon involved has been pretty restless and mutinous. Last time he disciplined them their LTs seemed to be about to cause problems. We have a couple of new commissioned officers with a chip on their shoulders about NCOs. I'm going to push Robbin's promotion through with the next wave for putting up with this shit and only coming to Lorne and me now.” 

“Why wouldn't Lorne touch it?” Rodney asks, leaning in the office doorway as John dumps the paperwork on Lorne's desk. 

“I'll pass that off as an accident,” John decides, gesturing to the stack. “Then maybe he'll do it.” 

“Wouldn't count on it.” 

“Damn. Oh well. Lorne's a mustang, started as an enlisted rank and worked his way up. I told him not to put himself in the middle of that stuff it just makes his job harder. Come on, you promised me lunch and Major Lorne promised me a meeting in... half an hour.” 

Rodney spends the afternoon doing checks in the chair-room with Carson and Radek and by five o'clock everyone's ready and waiting. 

Okay, Doctor Beckett, Woolsey's voice says, Five o'clock. We have our orders, take her up. 

***


	2. Chapter 2

John is forbidden to have anything to do with Atlantis's journey, landing, scouting or anything that happens over the first three days they're back in Pegasus. He's pretty sure this is Major Lorne still getting back at him but he doesn't complain. He sits in the labs with Rodney. It's not like he could do much anyway: he catches a cold their first day back and it makes him feel like crap, the coughing hurts all down his left side, the sneezing wrenches his healing ribs, and the headache makes him want to vomit. So he sleeps and sits with Rodney, who is actually pretty nice to him, considering it's Rodney Mckay. 

“Move, Colonel, you're in my way and I have a million things to do. Shift, shift. Fine, you can sit there. Why don't you go to your quarters? No, don't, sit still. You'll just fall flat on your face and I'll have to take the time to scrape you up.” 

Rodney shoves a mug of something warm and sweet-smelling at him, already in the middle of tapping away at his computer. John takes a sip and then another, bigger one on finding it's just lemon and honey. 

“Thanks for risking death-by-citrus for me.” 

“Yes, well, Carson is a fool but he might have talked some sense into me about that. Apparently, it is not allowed to call an allergy mixed up with what might be a slight phobia a ‘death sentence’.” 

“I've been checking things for citrus for years.” 

“Stop talking, you sound like death. And I'm busy.” 

John stops talking and sips his drink, watching the busy people around him. Radek comes and makes him use hand sanitizer so he can touch a few things to initiate them, already back on object-analysis looking for useful things. A new scientist comes to ask Rodney to check her math proof and John looks it over while Rodney's busy, circling the mistakes he can pick out. 

“Oh, thanks,” Rodney says, absently, later, picking up the proof. “Helpful.” 

“Mm,” John says, half asleep on the desk. Rodney turns to him, attention moving from work to John in two seconds flat. Being the focus of that attention is intense. 

“Bed time for you. Maybe you'll be better tomorrow and Lorne might let you into the office.” 

“He sprayed me with stuff this morning,” John says, mournfully, sliding off his stool and trailing after Mckay. 

“Serves you right for trying to get him sick. Now, I left the soft fleece of mine that you like in your quarters, in case you need anything this evening. I also left water, pills from Jennifer for the headache and bruises, and something in case you can't sleep. I colour coded them. Teyla left you a blanket, Kanaan left you a really nice, giant cushion... thing. It's awesome. Ronon says don't come near him until you can fight.” 

Rodney babbles on as they move through the transporter and to their quarters. 

“You're pretty much well now,” Rodney says. “I'm sleeping at Jennifer's tonight. If you need stuff, I won't be home. Thus the fleece.” 

John lies down as soon as he makes it to his bed and he's asleep before Rodney's litany of instructions is over. By the end of the week he's on light duty and wishing for the more peaceful time of slow death by cold. He's sitting in the gym, watching a group of marines training with Ronon, and he's bored out of his skull. Actually he's hiding from Major Lorne and Major Robbins, both of whom want him to do horrible things and paperwork. 

“Sheppard, you going to fight?” 

John considers taking Ronon up on the offer but seeing as his ribs are still weak and he's still limping slightly, he decides against it. 

“Not today, Chewie,” he says, sadly. 

“Then go away. You're making the guys try to show off.” 

“You said that makes them easier to beat.” 

“It does,” Ronon says, coming over and tugging John up. “It's boring. Come on, go do whatever it is Lorne wants you for. Or I'll radio and tell him you're hiding here.” 

“Traitor,” John says, but he limps off. 

Major Lorne's paperwork, it turns out, is bearable. But the Major calls in Robbins who sits opposite John, waiting patiently, face grave. 

“Damn,” John mutters. “Alright, Major Robbins, what is it?” 

“Two gunnies want training off world for the men,” Robbins said. “And I explained that gate travel is suspended except for trading for the moment. Reconnection with allies takes precedence. Gunnery Sergeant Roak had the brilliant idea of using the mainland. Sir.” 

“Why am I getting you instead of a request?” John asks. 

“Well, sir,” Robbins says, then pauses to grin. “The training in question, the training that has been requested-” 

“Stop,” John says. “I can see where this is going. They want what the captains call the Sheppard Intro 101, don't they?” 

Robbins nods, grinning. Sheppard Intro 101 is an interactive course, or so John's been told, that includes; rescuing AR-1, dealing with Doctor Mckay (sub-lesson; why you cannot kill Doctor Mckay and just how many times he saved your useless hide), thinking outside the box, and (John's personal favourite) naming the Wraith and why the Colonel gets first dibs. The second half of the course is a training exercise where John is supposed to take out as many of the marines as he can before they catch him. Sometimes he's allowed Ronon and Teyla but sometimes one of them is a traitor and he's never told. He groans. 

“It counts as light duty, sir,” Robbins says, hopefully. 

“It's not fair, I'm still bashed up. It gives you an advantage!” 

Robbins shrugs. John laughs, smiling. It's not often the guy relaxes or joins in with the marines' antics, so it's kind of nice that he is. 

“We'll go easy on you, sir. We can do it by platoon instead of by battalion,” Robbins says. 

“Tell you what, when I'm fit for duty you can throw whatever you want at me. In the meantime take the men to the mainland and see what war games the gunnies can come up with. I know for a fact that Roak has a huge repertoire of rather imaginative one and your Sergeant Mehra has lots of experience with horrible Pegasus things.” 

“Mehra's making a really good gunny, sir,” Robbins says. “But we might have a problem if Major Teldy wants her on the team again.” 

“Mm. Okay, see how she does with the pressure of that. Keep an eye on things. Oh, and make sure that Teldy understands and chooses her team with that in mind. Might be a good idea to make it a five or six person team, so Mehra can switch out if she needs. Okay?” 

“Might work, sir. I'll see how Sergeant Mehra does in the war games, if you don't mind, before making the call.” 

“Your choice, you have my recommendation, I trust your judgement. Anything else you need today?” 

“No sir. We have a week, for the games?” 

“Take three days on the mainland. I want the men to clock some hours in the jumpers and I you to rotate everyone through KP before the end of the week. I also need everyone to do city exploration, make sure we haven't turned anything nasty on during the flight and I want everyone to be familiar with the city.” 

“Right. Can I make the recon duty into part of the games, Sir? I think we'll split into teams and make it competitive.” 

“As long as it gets done and is taken seriously, do as you please.” 

Robbins finally leaves him alone and John considers hiding under the desk but Lorne is giving him the look. The one that promises a painful future full of paperwork and problems his Second in Command is perfectly able to deal with if he hides again. 

“Alright, Major. What next?” he says, giving in with bad grace. 

He doesn't manage to escape the office until nearly three pm, at which point he heads to Teyla's new quarters, hoping that he can call it family time and keep Major Lorne from calling him back to do inventory or something equally awful. One day the man will have to forgive him for running back to his helicopters but he's still holding the grudge for now. 

“Hello, John Sheppard,” Kenaan says, when the door slides open. “Teyla is out.” 

“Oh. Right.” 

“You are welcome to come in and see Torren, if you wish. I can make you some tea.” 

John accepts the invitation and spends what's left of his afternoon on the floor, entertaining Torren and then napping in the sun-spot with him. When he wakes up, Kanaan is sitting in the arm chair by the window, reading something Athosian and drinking tea. 

“Would you like some, John Sheppard?” Kanaan asks. 

“Um, yeah. Just John is fine, by the way.” 

Kanaan smiles at him and holds his arms out for his son. John passes the kid over and pours himself a mug of tea before taking a chair opposite Kanaan. It's awkward for a bit but then John relaxes into the silence and it's peaceful. 

“Are you well?” Kanaan asks, after a while. 

“I am now. Light duty for another two weeks while my ribs finish healing, though.” 

“That is good news.” 

“For me, definitely. For Major Lorne... I think he prefers it when I'm busy and out of his way.” 

Kanaan gives him a smile to show that he understands the joke and they settle into silence again. 

“What about you and Teyla?” 

John winces. The question popped out, the peaceful atmosphere making him forget that he wasn't... wherever he is when he usually says things that might lead to talk of feelings. 

“We are good. Thank you for your concern. We sorted out our differences.” 

“Oh. Good.” 

Kanaan smiles at him, genuinely amused this time. 

“I assume you do not want details.” 

“Oh! No. Thanks but, I'm not... good. At... um. This.” 

John gestures uselessly and Kanaan actually laughs. 

“Nor am I, John.” 

“You got Teyla.” 

“I have a feeling that it was rather she who got me.” 

“Yeah, I know that feeling,” John admits. 

They're both laughing softly when Teyla gets in and John jumps to his feet and makes his excuses to leave before she can guess that it's kind of almost her they're laughing at. Kanaan sends him a look that promises revenge but he's a very gentle man and John isn't too scared. It's not until he's halfway to the mess that he realises that the gentle man is married to Teyla and that he just left the Gentle Man to tell Teyla whatever he wished about the joke they were sharing. He comes to a halt. 

“Oi, Colonel, a bit of warning if you're going to do that? Did you hit your head? Or are you just trying to get run down?” Rodney says, stomping up from the direction of the labs and grabbing John when he nearly ploughs into him. “Come on, dinner time. Jennifer's meeting us there.” 

Rodney drags him the rest of the way, complaining about his day and the new minions. And the old minions, actually. And pretty much everything. He even gets onto the enlisted marines and how some of them accidentally blew up a toilet and how it fell to Rodney to save the day. 

“From sewage,” John says, grabbing a tray and getting in line. 

“...and I- wait, what?” 

“You saved the day… from sewage.” 

Rodney hits him over the head with his tray and pushes in front of John before carrying on his monologue. John acts as the audience until they're sat, then tells him to shut up. Jennifer appears before Rodney can complain about that as well, which is a blessing and means John gets to eat mostly in peace until Ronon appears and starts nagging him about starting running again. 

“You'll lose your new fitness if you don't get going soon,” Ronon says, ending his tirade against inactivity. 

“My what?” John asks. Ronon pokes at his shoulders and back, all the way down to his thigh. 

“This. Muscle,” Ronon says. 

“Huh. Rodney said something about that, too. I guess I was more active when I was away,” John says, considering it. 

There had been more downtime, more of the hurry up and wait that went with being a pilot. He'd spent a lot of it in the gym or running, or playing various games. Basketball, football, soccer. He spent the rest in town, practising his Pashto and Arabic. He even got to practise his French. But mostly he worked out and trained with the base personnel. 

“I was on base with some Army Rangers, for a bit,” John says. 

“Yeah?” Ronon says. “What are those?” 

“Like, elite army guys. Pretty tough, pretty fit. Gave me a hard time about being scrawny.” 

“Huh. So tomorrow morning.” 

Ronon gets up and goes to bus his tray before John can protest. He turns to Jennifer instead and waits for a break in the long McKay-complaint. 

“Jennifer,” he says, in a pause. 

The table, Jennifer, Rodney and Radek, go silent. 

“What?” John asks. 

“You called me Jennifer. You haven't done that before,” Keller says. 

“Oh,” John says, “Uh, sorry.” 

“No, no! Carry on. I like it.” 

“Um. Right,” John says. 

“What can I do for you?” she asks, seeing he's uncomfortable. 

“Clear me for things? Ronon is going to force me to go running with him tomorrow.” 

“I'll check you over tonight, if you want.” 

John groans. 

“I was hoping you could just, you know, do it.” 

“Not without a check,” she says, primly, laughing silently at him. 

“Fine. After dinner?” 

“You can come to the infirmary with me.” 

John waits for her to finish, half listening to Mckay and Radek debating something or other. He follows her down to the med bay without really thinking about it, trailing along after her like a duckling. She pokes and prods and tuts at him but does eventually clear him for running and gentle sparring with Teyla, as long as Teyla understands that he's still healing. 

“I'm sure she'll go easy on me,” he says, sliding off the gurney and escaping before Keller decides to do more tests. “Thanks doc!” 

He makes a break for the nearest transport and heads for his quarters. He has paperwork to finish up and he has to approve various requisition requests for the next Daedalus trip as well as checking everything that's going out in the next data-burst. 

***

He sees what Ronon and Rodney were on about. After a week doing careful, light exercise he finally goes on a proper run with Ronon and finds it much easier to keep up than he used to. Ronon walks him back to his quarters so he can go over routines to keep him in shape. John listens but pays very little attention; he was perfectly happy with his fitness level before and he'll probably fall back to it, once he gets busy again. It's good, though, spending time with Ronon. 

“I think we should get the team back together,” John says. “Do something, just the four of us.” 

“Film night. I'll bring Amelia,” Ronon says, immediately, disregarding the 'just the four of us'. 

John shrugs and gives in to Ronon's request, or rather order. He does talk to Major Lorne and Major Robbins about doing gate-team training though, once the war games are over. Robbins gives him reports about how that went and John spends most of his time scoring them. He calls a meeting with the other gate-team leaders and goes over their picks, suggesting a few substitutions and then he hands over to Robbins. 

“As of next Monday you will be going out again,” Robbins says. “You will be taking my men and as such I have a vested interest in this so I am calling for team training this week. We have eight four to six man teams and we have plenty of space on the mainland. 

“I and the two gunnies not on teams will be coming up with tests and you will all be going to the mainland in staggered shifts. You will come across various problems and you will solve them as a team. You will be judged as a team. Myself, Major Lorne, and Colonel Sheppard will go over the data on the weekend and decide whether you are gate-ready. 

“You will be receiving an email with instructions this afternoon, Mr Woolsey will call each team in for a briefing before your departure. You have until tonight to ask any questions. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen.” 

The meeting breaks up and Lorne walks out with John, falling into step. 

“Are you cleared for duty, sir?” Lorne asks. 

“Not yet but this counts as light duty and end of next week I will be.” 

“Was this your idea?” 

“Maybe.” 

“Why, sir? If you don't mind me asking. I mean, I can see the merit, but your team is established and works fine.” 

“Thank you,” John says, then sighs. “I don't know if it's paranoia or good sense, to be honest. I wouldn't mind a second opinion. Not here, though.” 

“Office?” 

“God, I hate those four walls.” 

John leads Lorne out to a private balcony instead and leans, looking out over the ocean. This planet is colder than the last two and actually has seasons. The meteorologists have decided, after much debate, that this is spring and it is going to get warmer. 

“Sir?” Lorne nudges. 

“All three members of my team have, since we went to earth, deepened attachments outside of the team. I think it might be wise to just reconnect, make sure... make sure this is still going to work.” 

“They'll prioritise it, sir.” 

“Thanks. I know that I have some... um. Yeah. So, Yes. Um.” 

“No, sir, your personal feelings are not affecting your command decisions. Aside from anything else half the teams are new or at least changed. It's a good opportunity to make sure they'll work well together, in a relatively safe place. The teams who have been reconnecting with trading partners are mostly temporary, with a lot of diplomatic personnel, so even they can't get out of this on the excuse of having already been together this tour.” 

“Okay.” 

“And I agree that your own team could do with working together, since their personal lives have changed and you've been apart for a long time. And you have been away doing other duty.” 

John sighs. 

“Thank you, Major. Evan.” 

“Yes, sir. You’re a friend as well as a CO, John. I don't mind this. It's part of what I really like about Atlantis, actually, I like the way you run things, the informality that's admissible.” 

John feels flushed with the compliment and when he turns to Lorne the man is leaning against the balcony, head back to catch the sun, and he looks beautiful. John clears his throat and leaves the Major to it before he does something that would not be a good idea at all. He goes to dig McKay out of the labs and drags him to their kitchen, making coffee. 

“What?” Rodney asks, on a heavy sigh. “What is wrong? Why are you... fussing? Like a housewife.” 

“I'm not fussing like a- fine. I may have happened to find Major Lorne-” 

“You can call him Evan sometimes, you know,” Rodney snipes, banging about in cupboards and making himself a peanut butter sandwich before taking John's coffee. 

“I was on the balcony with Major Lorne, my 2IC, and I realised how good looking he was. Is. He's beautiful.” 

“Bad idea.” 

“Yes, exactly!” 

“Right. Major Lorne. Okay, so, what am I doing?” 

“Nothing. Just,” John says and waves his hand.

“Alright. You don't fancy him, do you? You just find him attractive, right?” 

“God, Rodney!” 

“Yes or no, do you fancy him?” 

“No!” 

“Good. That's fine, then. Surely you find your marines hot, sometimes? Honestly, what's the problem?” 

“The problem is he's my second in command and I'm freaking out!” 

“I can see that. Oh, hey, Jennifer and I are thinking of splitting up.” 

John opens his mouth to continue with his freak out but then stops. Rodney gives him a smug look, understanding that he's been derailed, but John is too shocked to care. Rodney and Jennifer were going to get married and have children and be happy, the American dream of a white picket fence. 

“What?” John says, shock making him high pitched. 

“Yeah, well, we like each other and the orgasms are fantastic but we're mostly friends now. And she wants to be open to options, doesn’t want to be polyamorous, and she thinks I should live my life not sleep with my friends.” 

“Friends,” John says, weakly. “You're breaking up?” 

“Maybe, probably. Yes.” 

John sits down on the floor, cradling his coffee mug. Oh god. He thinks his 2IC is hot, Rodney's breaking up with the love of his life, the woman he's supposed to marry, Atlantis is in Pegasus, Lorne's still kind of pissy with him despite the thing just now on the balcony. John pulls his left knee up, enjoying the stretch of his muscles, the lack of pain from the bruises that still linger. 

“Wow, this is one big freak out,” Rodney says, not sounding freaked out at all, just sounding kind of sympathetic. 

John closes his eyes and wonders if maybe Dave was right. Maybe this is just another place for him to play a game of pretend, another way for him to live a lie and hurt people. He feels a headache building. 

“John, come on, get off the floor and come into your room.” 

John does as he's told, letting Rodney push him onto the bed and get his boots off. 

“I need to tell the team about the training,” John says, dully. 

“No, you don't. You need to tell me what's upsetting you.” 

“I'm not a fifteen year old girl.” 

“No, which means this should go smoothly. You tell me, I tell you you're an idiot, then we pretend we never had this conversation. Come on, something's been eating you up.” 

“I left,” John says, shutting his eyes, working it through as he speaks. “You weren't the only one who wasn't sure I wouldn't be left behind. I was aware, all the time, that this time I understood that it was people I was fighting against. It was hard. But I fell back into it, I was trained for years. It's habit, routine; make the bed, morning routine, exercise and eat, mission, bed time. Make the bed, morning routine, exercise and eat, mission. Over and over until it's a groove.” 

“Hmm.” 

“Stop with the stupid noises!” 

“Sorry.” 

“It was fucking bullshit. The flying was... but the rest? I was used to Atlantis where the hurry up and wait is down time or at least just on stand-by. It's different. We're at war, here, but it's not like war on earth.” 

“I get that.” 

“Then I came back and everyone was angry because I had left. But, it is duty and we swear an oath, and I'm air-force. I'm a soldier. It's my job.” 

“That's what Evan said.” 

“It might not have been the right decision but it was done and I did the job and came back to do this job. You were all different. Away, I came to terms again with being...” 

“An outsider. Do I apologise again?”

“It's how the world works, McKay. It's not a problem. Sometimes it's painful, being an American soldier and not being straight but it is my choice and my career.” 

“You've told me, I know that part. Easy, you're breathing like a steam train.” 

John slows his breathing. 

“Dave...” he starts. 

“What did he say? He can hardly understand, can he?” 

“It just hit close, at the time. It was an old argument and he jabbed at insecurities.” 

“About belonging.” 

The thing about talking to Rodney is that Rodney can fill in half of it himself by now. He could probably map out all of this with what he knows and guess work, probably already has, in fact. They’ve had this conversation, drunk, injured, thinking their dying, and then as the years pass it’s happened other times too. They know the gaps, the things that the other doesn’t say, they know little details and big details. It’s weird but makes it easier.

“You and Jennifer were supposed to get married and be happy and normal.” 

Rodney laughs. 

“We thought so too. We're friends and that's important and good, too, she says.” 

“Yeh.” 

“This isn't anything I can make better, John.” 

Rodney sighs, and John sighs, too, which makes Rodney laugh again. 

“Alright,” Rodney says, patting John's thigh. “This is it. It'll be easier when we're going through the gate again, falling back into that routine. I will tell Evan that he's held his grudge long enough and he will cut you a break. It is going to change, with Ronon and Teyla. But you're better now, you can run with Ronon, you can spar with Teyla. It'll be fine.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Yeah, well, I have to tell myself the same thing every day. It'll be fine, we'll be fine. The team will still work.” 

“Oh. Really?” 

“Yes, really!” 

“I might be a bit of a mess.” 

“You think? Never mind. Jesus, Shepherd, we love you, okay? It'll be fine.” 

John decides not to tease Rodney for using the 'L' word, because it is really fucking good to hear it. He shuts his eyes again and leans into Rodney's shoulder. 

“Thanks, Rodney. Oh, crap, I really do have to brief you guys. Can you radio Teyla and Ronon and set up a meeting? Give me half an hour to shower and get my shit together.” 

“Sure.” 

“Thanks, McKay.” 

It's two days later and John's pretty sure that he's still pretty wobbly with the whole 'personal issues' thing. His team is scheduled for a briefing in the evening and to depart for their gate-team training the next day. John gives up on work after lunch and goes up to Richard's office, knocking only perfunctorily before stepping in seeing as Richard's alone. 

“Colonel, you're not due for another...” Woolsey checks his watch.  
“Four hours,” John fills in for him. “I know. I wondered if you wanted to play a game of chess.” 

“Oh thank god. Yes, very much, John. I'm filling in reports about the trade agreements and honestly if I have to talk about grain and tava beans and nutrition for another minute I'm going to go down to the supply and requisition every single thing that's bad for you and eat it.” 

John bursts out laughing, taking the visitor's chair and lounging as Richard sets the board up. 

“Trade reports can have that effect,” he says, eventually, sitting forward and resting his elbows on the table to look at the board. 

Richard's set it up so John's playing black; they switch each game and this time it's Richard's turn for black but he seems to be hoping John doesn't notice. John doesn't really mind, he likes both sides, so he lets it go. Richard always starts with the same move: e2 to 24. John counters and Richard brings his knight into play. The game is slow but steady, Richard playing hap-hazardously badly and John matching him. 

“You once said,” Richard says, capturing John's knight, “that this was the Pegasus galaxy, the rules not... You seemed to have it down pat; rules there to be broken, things working differently. I got used to it. Now I'm not. I want the rules to work. I like the damned rules.” 

John plays with the bishop he captured, examining the board. He's not enjoying this game much so he plots out his check-mate. 

“I know the feeling,” he admits. “It takes some getting used to.” 

“We both got immersed in the worlds we're comfortable in, back on earth. It's like re-learning everything isn't it?” 

John decides to let Richard win, after-all. John's supposed to be good at this, supposed to know what he's doing, but it feels like he's back at the beginning. Not only feeling his way through the new galaxy but thrust into a job he's unprepared for and has no idea how to do. 

“Check,” Richard says. “Come on, just finish it and we can start over. Mercy killing, John.” 

“Fine, alright,” John says, moving his bishop into position. “Checkmate. You can play white again if you want.” 

“You noticed that.” 

“Yup.” 

Richard resets the board, moving his favourite pawn immediately. He plays a tighter game this time. 

“Chess was always,” John says, bringing out his knight early, “about control, for me. I controlled the game, and I could control my opponent. Read their moves, their strategies, in the plays they made. I played my father every time,” John pauses to move his pawn, “there was a decision to be made. I used the game to read his moods and manipulated him as best I could.” 

“Control and chess, yes, I understand that,” Richard says, taking the pawn. 

“The military career helps with the strategy,” John says, pretending to examine the board even though he's pretty sure he already knows the game Richard's playing. No need to get complacent. Might as well let him think he's controlling the play, though. John moves the rook Richard's after into his reach, “the chess sometimes helps with strategy in reality. Both ways. Now, Pegasus is more like the multi-dimensional chess Spock and Kirk play in Star Trek.” 

Richard reaches for his pawn then changes his mind and moves the bishop. Interesting, changing the game. John moves his rook back out of harm's way. 

“Except, Pegasus is like the multi-dimensional chess but without a rule book. And every time you get hold of the rules, they change.” 

John lets Richard control things right up to the closing game. They make bad chess analogies about the galaxy they're in and John ends up laughing so hard it makes his chest ache where his ribs were broken. 

“Check,” Richard says, smug. 

John moves his king, happy to stretch this out. 

“Did you read Harry Potter?” Richard asks, suddenly. “Check.” 

John shifts his king another square and shakes his head. 

“Saw the first movie. With very bad Pashto dubbing.” 

“Pegasus is like wizard chess. In the book, Harry plays with a set that's not his and the pieces rebel and won't do what he tells them. Check.” 

John shunts his king along. 

“Yeah, I saw the film,” he says again. The wraith are like that one they play with the giant pieces- wallop and you're in the fire and only Harry and the girl get to go on through, the ginger kid is left behind.” 

“Except we don't leave people behind. Check and come on, put me out of my misery.” 

“Check mate. No, we don't leave people behind.” 

“It really wasn't just Colonel Mitchell stalling, John. There are a lot of people who would have done everything in their power to have you on this mission even if it meant petitioning the Pentagon to have you recalled stateside.” 

“Another game?” 

“Maybe I'll win this time. Switch sides?” 

John shrugs. He plays just as good a game with white. He's been trained since he was a very small child to know this game inside and out. There are very few people who can beat him at it. 

“At college,” John says, grinning, “we used to play the Star Trek version of Chess.” 

“We,” Richard says, leaning forward as if telling a secret, “played the wizard version.” 

John snorts with laughter. He and Richard, after one more game, switch to discussing and then completing trade reports which is something John never thought he'd do voluntarily but turns out to be not that bad. Whenever he gets frustrated or bored he just passes whatever he's working on off to Richard. It's a good system. It does mean that by the time the rest of the team arrive they're both incredibly glad to see them. Rodney, the first to enter, is hailed as a saviour. 

“Reports?” Rodney asks, taking a chair next to John. 

“You guessed it,” John says, tossing the bundle of paperwork he's been studying onto Richard's desk, saving his work on the tablet he's been using and sitting back. 

“Okay, so I spent the afternoon trying to talk that stupid woman, what's her name? The new engineer on Radek's team. The one with the dreadlocks.” 

“I have no idea,” John says. 

“Anyway, I had to talk her out of writing a proposal for a project that would include taking the ZPM apart. And do you know why? To try and re-make it to be more eco-friendly.” 

“I thought the ZPMs were practically a hundred percent green energy?” 

“They are a hundred percent green! The only emissions would be in the manufacturing stage and seeing as we have no idea how to go about that it's immaterial! I have no idea what she was on about. I think she's some kind of hungover hippy with a random wish to cause destruction! Also, Hooligan tried to blow up the labs again.” 

“Hooligan?” Richard asks. John turns his chair to face Richard giving him a sardonic smile before answering. 

“He means Hannigan,” John says. “He's been here about a year and McKay hates him.” 

“He blew up my lab!” 

“You've blown up your lab before and as I remember it he was working on a project you had authorised and checked over.” 

“Still blew up my lab. Also, I can hardly be blamed if the idiots who work for me don't take into account that I'm always right and refuse to adjust their parameters.” 

“Of course not. It's never your fault, is it?” John says, grinning. 

“Obviously. I'm infallible. Anyway he was messing around with power conduits and fried himself. His tablet caught fire, it was actually quite spectacular.” 

“Is he alright?” 

“I'm sure he'll be back to terrorising me in no time. Radek seemed to think it was more wise to send him to the infirmary than to yell at him.” 

John feels something click and settle in him as he falls into old patterns with Rodney and by the time Ronon looms into the office, he's pretty sure that he's getting to be a bit more balanced. Which is good, because it has been pretty disconcerting. Teyla's the last to arrive but she's got a kid so they all cut her some slack about it. 

“Alright,” Richard says, “let's get started.” 

 

***

The first thing that happens the next morning after they land the jumper is that they are ambushed. They step out onto the mainland and before they can so much as take a breath they're hitting the ground. John has a heavy marine pinning him by the small of the back, big hand avoiding the bruises with enough skill that John reckons he's been briefed. 

“Hello,” John says, in his appease the natives voice, “We're peaceful explorers.” 

The marine answers back in what John's pretty sure is Hungarian but he can't be sure. He can hear Ronon fighting to his left and Mckay complaining to his right. Teyla's going the same route as him, explaining their mission. Which is a really basic trade mission, according to their briefing. 

“Ronon,” John says. “Settle down. And Rodney would you shut up? You're giving me a headache.” 

Ronon stills and Rodney's complaints slow then stop. There's silence for a stretch before John's yanked up by the back of his tac vest and set on his feet. The big marine turns out to be Nason, one of the French troops. He glares at John and gives him a shove. 

“Hey,” John says, putting up his hands. “Peaceful. We mean no harm.” 

He's shoved again, which is annoying. Ronon growls suggesting he's getting the same treatment. 

“The brief said that they spoke English!” Rodney says, annoyed in his turn. “You're supposed to speak English!” 

“Okay Rodney, settle down. Let's just go with it, for the moment,” John says. 

“Maybe they are going to take us to their settlement,” Teyla suggests. “Which is where we want to go. I think we should play along.” 

“Fine,” Ronon says, “but if he pushes me one more time I'm knocking his teeth in.” 

Teyla is right as it turns out, they’re taken to the village, to a hut, given food, told stories, and left alone for a bit. This is a planet of refugees and they’ve been told about the different peoples who’ve made it their home.

“John,” Rodney says, amused, “did you catch the list of people living here?” 

“I got… Haradrim from Lord of the Rings, Gethenia which’ll be Left Hand of Darkness, Shi’ar are, what, X-Men? And… Centauri from Babylon 5, plus the Gaar from the Athosians, I heard Kanan telling Torren a story about those” John says. 

“Mm, yes. Tolkien, le Guin, Doctor Who, X-men, Babylon 5. Atlantis is full of geeks.” 

“Doctor Who? Didn't catch that one,” John admits. 

“Sisters of Plenitude. New Who. David Tennant.” 

“You been catching up on TV?” John asks. 

“Oh yeah, Jeannie's great about sending stuff now that we're playing happy families again. You haven't seen any of the new ones?” 

“Nah.” 

“Right. My quarters as soon as we get back. You'll like David Tennant,” Rodney says. 

John grits his teeth at the subtle inflection on the word 'like'. Rodney has taken to pointing out people he thinks John might be attracted to. 

“Time and a place, Rodney,” John says. “We need to decide what to do here.” 

“I still say the trade is worth considering,” Teyla says. 

“Okay. I'm pretty sure the peoples are hints for us, because the Haradrim have some kind of big animal they ride on, like oliphants. Elephants. Whichever, We saw some vague big shapes on the way in, helping with the harvests,” John says. 

“Sisters of Plenitude were not very moralistic,” Rodney says. “They were making human clones and experimenting on them. Kind of like Michael.” 

“Okay. Let's assume some kind of link with Michael, for now. Okay, Gethenians... Uh, I don't remember much. Peaceful, communist... prison camps.” 

“Yes,” Rodney says. “And not kind to the diplomatic mission.” 

“Centauri?” 

“Hair,” Rodney says. “You must get along.” 

“Arrogance,” John saus. “So must you.” 

“Fine. Disloyal, sneaky.” 

“Uh, who else? Shi'ar. I admit I can't remember much about them.” 

“Damn, me neither. I was never a big X-men fan.” 

“I have no idea what you two are on about,” Ronon says. “But if we’re talking stories, those guys in the cloaks and hoods match a Satedan legend I have spoken of to the marines. It is one of bravery and loyalty, it is useful for teaching.”

“I think that’s what I thought Shi’ar were,” Rodney says. “Yours makes more sense.”

“The stories were about fighting but the people were always willing to trade, to make peace other ways,” Ronon says, shrugging. 

“What about the Gaar?” John says. 

“They were a warlike people,” Teyla says. “They found peace through the earth and became farmers. Their leader was still a great warrior who went into battle for them, allowing them to give up arms and live a simple life. Later stories talk about a section who started building and creating machines to do their work, I think these must be part of that faction. The stories were about the earth and about advancing too far and becoming a threat to the Wraith.” 

“But they haven't got that far yet,” John says. “So let's just assume they're a faction of the Gaar who want to discover and invent, build a society that's not farming.” 

“Anyone else?” Rodney asks. 

“There are three groups who we have nothing on,” John says. 

“There are a couple of warrior people,” Ronon says, from the doorway. 

“Let's assume some kind of religion as well, and maybe... medical, farmers... maybe someone with tech, at least electricity,” John says. “I think our best bet is to focus on representatives from the Shi'ar seeing as we know they are open to trading and if the stories are about teaching then maybe they seek knowledge, and whoever brought the lights.” 

Teyla nods in agreement and Rodney scowls, but only because they're stuck waiting. 

“Anything?” John asks, going over to check on Ronon. 

“They're just talking. Big meeting. Happens in collective societies like this,” Ronon says. 

They end up waiting for half an hour, passing Rodney's tablet around taking turns playing minesweeper and going over what they've learnt with Teyla. Eventually Corporal no-name enters with a Centauri, one of the cat ears people (Sisters of Plenitude apparently) and three others. 

“This is Lewis, of the Centauri,” the corporal says, “Jaalar of the Gaar, Chara of the Haradrim and Sister Lucy. I am Corporal McGuinness, of the Shi’ar. It would seem your people and mine use a similar ranking system.” 

“John Sheppard, Colonel. Dr Rodney Mckay, Ronon and Teyla,” John says. 

Corporal McGuinness shakes his hand and they sit in the circle of chairs. John does the talking to begin with before letting Teyla slowly take over, testing how comfortable McGuinness is with her. John settles back once Teyla's got into negotiations about what there is to offer and focuses on listening to the noise level outside the enclosed room and paying attention to the quieter members of the coalition of natives. The Centauri is watching Rodney with a disturbing intensity and John nudges Ronon to keep an eye on that. He himself turns to Chara and Sister Lucy, as Jaalar is listening to the negotiations and joining in, showing no interest in anything else. Chara is on guard and will be the first on John's list to take out if it comes to that. Sister Lucy is scribbling on a pad of paper. 

Rodney breaks into the negotiations to ask about the electricity, at which point Chara takes the chance to mention medicines and the two them start their own discussion. John keeps an ear open in case Rodney needs help and turns his attention to Lewis. There's something that's putting John on edge about him. They sit like that for hours, John and Ronon switching watches to keep an eye on the parties not involved in the negotiations. They end up with two agreements, one to trade food stuff for building materials, one to trade medical knowledge and technology. Rodney seems pretty sure that there's nothing they need in terms of the latter, but it makes both Lewis and Sister Lucy sit back, pleased with themselves. 

“I feel that we have made much progress for today,” Teyla says. “Usually at this point we would agree to disperse. Another team will come within a seven day period to go over the details and make a formal arrangement, after which we will again disperse. The final stage is when a third team come and the logistics are worked out.” 

“That is acceptable,” McGuinness says, after a brief look at her companions. “If you would like we shall now break for refreshment.” 

“We are expected by our people,” Teyla says, at John's small head movement. “We will need to return to our ship.” 

Lewis presses them but they don't give in; John's pretty sure that if they stay longer things will go downhill and Teyla seems to agree. Instead they take their leave and start the walk back the way they came, alone this time. Except for the escort in the trees. 

“700 metres,” Ronon grunts. “Double time?” 

“Easy,” John says, quietly. “Remember this is about diplomacy and we're being watched.” 

Ronon nods but he's tense and ready for attack. John's ready, too, because this is a training exercise and so far it's been fairly routine. He helped Robbins come up with basic parameters so he knows that 'routine with the possibility of going bad' is what this is about but he also asked for at least one pressure point for every team. Half way back the escort breaks away and John relaxes a bit automatically. He's just settling into a good rhythm, speeding up a little now they're not under scrutiny, when his radio buzzes. 

Team one, this is Major Lorne. While we tried to find some speakers and rig the jumpers for this, Radek got pissed off and stormed back to the labs so, imagine that you hear the whine of a dart, coming in East, due South-West. 

John checks the rest of the team got that before spinning to face the direction indicated. 

“Okay,” he says, looking about.

“We're only about three hundred metres from the jumper, up through those trees,” Ronon says.

“Steep but short: sprint it,” John says.

They run, Ronon taking the lead and John coming up on their six keeping an eye out for the ‘darts’ curious how they're going to simulate them. He's got his eyes on the sky so he almost runs into Rodney. 

“Crap,” Rodney says. “Bastards.” 

John turns and takes in the jumper. There's a big sign on the side that reads 'oh dear, the natives gutted me and I don't work!'. 

“How am I meant to fix that?” Rodney says. “There's nothing wrong with it.” 

Sir, this is Major Lorne again. There's a list of damages to the jumper inside. 

John pushes past Rodney and opens the door to grab the list, shoving it at Rodney. 

“Any good?” he asks. 

The whine is getting louder, the darts are almost on top of you, sir. 

“Just a minute,” Rodney says. 

“Never mind. Make for the gate,” John says. “Two clicks that way.” 

He points Ronon in the right direction then gets Rodney moving. 

“Why did we park here?” Rodney complains, bumping along at a run. 

“Triangle with the village and the gate,” John says. “The gate is in a forested area and this was the point closest to both.” 

“Great.” 

They come over the brow of the hill and descend into the trees. 

“Got a heading, Ronon?” John checks. 

“Got it.” 

John changes his focus to the sky so it's him who shoves Rodney out of the way with a yelled warning. A jumper comes over, a picture of a dart stuck to the bottom, and ask they roll away a spray of paint marks their previous path. John starts to laugh, flat on his back looking up at the trees. 

“On your feet, Sheppard,” Ronon says sharply. “We have another incoming.” 

John's still chuckling as he runs along on their six, watching the sky and listening out for Lorne. He's on warning duty, Ronon's leading the way, Teyla's guarding them from other threats and Rodney will be saving his energy for possible problems with the DHD. 

“Four darts,” John shouts. “Pretty sure that's it! We need to take at least one out!” 

He rolls out of the way of another beam, grinning at the yellow paint on the forest floor. 

“Ground drops ahead,” Ronon calls back. “Any use?” 

“Yeah. Go ahead!” John calls. 

He gets to the beginning of the steeper drop and trips himself, rolling behind a tree and then scuttling left and further in. The dart-jumpers do a run over but then go after his team, coming in low. John pulls up his P90, takes the slope at a sprint, top speed, and aims for the belly. His P90 sprays a shower of red paint, obscuring the dart picture. 

Oh, whir, crack! Down comes the dart. Kaboom! Look to your left for the flames. Good shot, sir. 

“One down, keep an eye out for wraith on the ground!” John calls. “We're down one and a half clicks, good time guys!” 

He catches up with the others, breath coming in pants now, looking back up at the sky. 

“Incoming!” 

The roll away and John and Rodney both aim for the dart, spraying the trees. 

“We need clearer space,” John pants, getting to his feet and looking around. 

“Adjusting heading about half a degree west, the trees seem to thin,” Ronon says then he takes off in that direction, Rodney on his heels and Teyla taking up their six.

John winces as his chest reminds him of his recent bruises but he follows on gamely, eyes on the sky. He’s been cleared for this the ache won’t actually do any harm The trees do thin but not by much. It might help. 

“Down!” John yells as the jumper comes over again. This time the paint hits the dart picture. 

Nice, Doc! That's two down. Fire to the right, crash site pretty close. 

John gets up onto his knees as the other jumper comes over, sending up paint. He gets a little on his face but he thinks it hardly counts as a bullet. Maybe a burn from firing too close to his cheek. Then they're up and running again, veering back on course for the gate. The trees thicken and they burst out of a mess of underbrush and almost flatten the cardboard, two dimensional cut out of a badly drawn DHD. 

“Dial, Rodney!” John yells. There's movement in the trees around them. 

“Stop, down!” Ronon yells. 

They hit the ground, John winding himself as his body responds to the urgency in Ronon's voice a little too enthusiastically. The trees above their heads are painted blue for the stunner. 

“Shit. I count five,” John says. 

“Six,” Ronon grunts. 

“And two darts. DHD good, Rodney?” 

“Cover me and I'll see.” 

Rodney belly crawls as red paint flies across at the trees, Ronon spinning up and falling again to get their six. 

“DHD's good to dial!” Rodney calls. 

They hit the ground as an answering spray of paint flies at them. This is actually pretty fun, John decides, and it'll appease Ronon seeing as he didn't get to go paint balling on Earth. He gets up onto a knee to cover Rodney as he dials, yelling out the buttons as he presses them. 

Two marines wearing all black run out and John shoots them both but they ignore the paint splatters and spread a ribbon between two trees. Oops, that's the gate. John will have to apologise for shooting them later. Oh well. 

“Okay. Ronon, cover our flank, I'll take our six. Teyla, you get stunned so we can pinpoint the wraith, you’re lightest. Ronon, you scoop her up. Rodney, take our six, there's one in the trees behind us. Go!” 

It's a matter of minutes before they're breaking the ribbons, Teyla in Ronon's arms, John leaning on Rodney in respect for the red paint on his shin that he's pretty sure is Rodney's fault. 

“Sorry,” Rodney says, when they stop, all breathless and grinning. “I got the wraith, though. Got Johnson good.” 

Johnson comes out of the trees, chest covered in red, proving Rodney's point. 

“You shot me!” John feels the need to point out but he's still grinning, panting, adrenaline pumping. 

Good work, sir. Hold tight, Robbins has to hike through, should be with you any moment. 

“Thanks, Major,” John says. “Nice sounds effects.” 

Lorne laughs before signing off. Robbins appears through the trees, a clipboard in hand. He has a sergeant with him who comes over and inspects them. 

“You got a medic, sir?” the sergeant asks, gesturing to John's leg, Teyla’s blue shirt. 

“Dialed the alpha site,” John says. “We always station two medical teams there, one to go off world one to stay put.” 

“Alright. You're done, sir. That was a good showing.” 

“Thanks, Sergeant.” 

They troop through the trees to the jumper with Robbins, answering a few questions. 

“Debrief after a shower?” John asks Robbins. 

“Yessir, that's why Sergeant Jawall inspects for paint. She'll be going over the course of your exercise, running down markers and reports,” Robbins says. “Did you remember to check in at the jumper and the settlement?” 

“Teyla's duty,” John says. “I assume she did.” 

“I did,” Teyla says. 

John sits quiet and still in the jumper, breathing through the adrenaline. Rodney's warm at his side, Ronon reassuring opposite. Teyla's voice is calm from the front. 

“You both good?” John asks, in the ready room, stripping out of his tac-vest and giving in his weapons. 

“I'm good, Shepherd. Shower,” Ronon says. 

“Debrief in half an hour!” John calls after him. 

“I am going to return to my quarters to check on Kanaan and Torren. I will see you later, Colonel,” Teyla says. “I am quite well.” 

“Good, good,” John says, dumping the paintguns. “Rodney?” 

“Hm? Oh, I'm fine. That sucked, though! Gelleck's team got three kinds of tech. We got electricity. Primitive electricity!” 

“We did good.” 

“I had nothing to do.” 

“Yeah, it was team work. We already know you're brilliant at doing your stuff. You left the jumper when you couldn't fix it and were very diplomatic about the lack of advancement. You managed not to piss anyone off. You did good, Rodney.” 

“Oh. Right.” 

“And we managed not to get covered in paint. Gelleck's team came back blue.”   
s  
“Oh yeah,” Rodney says, perking up. “Shower?” 

They walk back to their quarters together, John still humming with energy and trying to come down by controlling his breathing and body. 

“Are you good, Colonel?” Rodney asks, at his door. 

“Adrenaline,” John says with what he's sure is a crazy grin. Rodney just grins back at him before disappearing into his room. 

While the exercise is fun and while he gets a turn making dart noises and being the radio god in Lorne's place, John realises the downside of all this on Sunday. He commandeers a room and he, Major Lorne and Major Robbins sit around a table for the entire day. First they listen to the gunnies, minus Mehra, go over the outcomes of the war games, then they set up a white board and go over the gate teams. The first three teams are easy- John's team is okay-ed without a thought, Robbins sticking up their score in red. Lorne is next, two points behind AR-1 with his eight man team. 

“That score will be better,” John says. “You'll be rotating personnel, usually there'll only be four of you going out. You good with this?” 

“Yes sir,” Lorne says. “It's better than the six Woolsey gave me last time.” 

The third team is a science team who won't be going onto planets until they've been well scoped out, not a first contact. They have one marine, a meteorologist, a physicist and an engineer. They all work together regularly. The further five teams take longer and John sends a marine to the mess to get them some food. They end up sprawled around the table, paper balled up around them, food wrappings, arguing over whether Major Teldy's team should pass. 

“Robbins, it's not a big deal,” John says. 

“They got the lowest score,” Robbins says stubbornly. “I want my gunny.” 

“Mehra wants on the gate team. Besides which I've said we can put Pinkerton and Littlemore in the rotation for Teldy. She likes them both, it won't shake anything up.” 

“They got their doc killed. Shot in the chest,” Robbins says. 

“This was a training exercise and Dr Porter's not the only one who got shot. I got shot!” 

“You didn't die, sir.” 

“Technically neither did she. Captain Vega had a doctor's note from Keller, she wasn't a hundred percent and we wouldn't have sent her out if it wasn't just an exercise.” 

The argument goes on for a while but John wins in the end. He's pretty sure it's mostly through sheer stubbornness. He knows why his NCO isn't pleased; he'll be losing a captain and a gunnery sergeant in a battalion that's already stretched. 

“Alright, sir, I'll okay the team, but I have to cut standby companies down to three. I can't maintain more than three on standby, staff the base and have the battalion ready for active duty at a moment's notice.” 

“Understood, Major,” John says. “I'll let you hash out the rest with Lorne.”

Johns's fed up and tired but he goes back to his office to catch up on the weeks' paperwork and trade reports. There are three worlds they had good ties with who have been attacked by the wraith while they were gone who will need humanitarian aid and there are two villages who refuse to renew trade agreements. He sighs and makes a note to mark a team for first contact whose mission will be to find trading partners. He also has to follow up with Woolsey on several base-wide issues and make sure he's up to date with the other departments. He's resting his head on the desk when Lorne comes in. 

“Thanks for that, sir,” he says, taking a seat. 

“No problem,” John says, ignoring the sarcasm. 

“Teams are ready to go.” 

John sits up and he and Lorne grin at one another for a minute before John sends out the necessary memos. 

“I'll drop by Woolsey's office,” he says with a yawn. “Get things moving so we're back to normal by tomorrow. Let's see if we can get a routine going by the end of the week, okay? Get the marines back into training and so on. Oh god, I promised Robbins we could do Sheppard training, didn't I?” 

“You did, sir,” Lorne says with a grin. 

“I'm taking two weeks off from that promise. Make a note of it. Right, see you in the morning. Hang on, do we have a roster ready for the teams?” 

“We do. I also have a list of planets from McKay.” 

“Yeah, I just updated it. Okay, let's send team four out Monday, they went first with training and I gave them the weekend as downtime.” 

“Yes sir, I’ve done a roster I’ll put together the schedule and post it in the barracks. Robbins is right, by the way, John. We're stretched out here.” 

“I know and I know it's because I was out during preparations. The Daedalus is bringing in a second wave of marines I've had Mitchell recruit for us, including two gunnies and a captain, two of whom are women who were out here way back when we first came through that gate. And we've got a team of Army rangers coming in.” 

“Okay. We can hold it down till then, as long as nothing big happens.” 

“The rangers are a surprise for Robbins so don't tell him. He knows about the incoming staff.” 

“Right.” 

“So. Woolsey's, then dinner. I am taking Tuesday for some down-time, Major, so make sure your team's not out then.” 

“Yes sir.” 

By the next morning Atlantis has begun to settle, re-learning the routines they've all forgotten on their long earth-side furlough. Rodney finds it difficult after months and months of pure research to get used to being constantly interrupted again. Radek says he's like a fish with a sore head. Thats leads to an argument about why it has to be a bear and Radek can't substitute whichever animal he likes (Rodney gets so frustrated that he almost electrocutes himself, which Radek enjoys immensely). In the afternoon he’s striding through the bowels of Atlantis ranting at Doctor Porter as they go.

“You studied social sciences what the hell do you know? This is a waste of time! I'm telling you that the fluctuations are normal,” he continues, a line of argument he's already stated on several occasions.

“And I'm telling you they're not,” Porter says, stubbornly. “I've been studying this area of the city for months doctor McKay! And while my PhD is social sciences and while yes that is what I actually want to do, I am also an expert on ancient water systems and I have extensive off and on world experience with all kinds of tech so shut up!”

“Carson's a bad influence. Since when do my minions answer back? You may be an expert in some small way, but you're not a patch on me and this is-”

“Not at all normal,” Porter finishes.

They stare at the corridor ahead of them. There is most definitely something wrong. They're at the very bottom of the city, the hallway one of the many that is so rarely used. They do regular maintenance down here due to the pumping system that sucks water out of the ocean but usually it's just a quick check. Right now, it's definitely odd. Rodney thumbs his radio back on. He can still hear Sheppard bickering with Robbins about the importance of paperwork, the reason he turned it off in the first place.

“Colonel, you might want to see this,” Rodney says.

“I'm busy McKay, call someone else.”

“Um, no.”

John curses and starts arguing. Rodney gives their location and turns the radio off again. Porter's already got to work, tapping away at a data-pad, and Rodney really wants to join her because this is weird and kind of fascinating but he has to actually fix the problem not just get excited so he turns the radio back on and switches channels.

“I need an engineer down here, preferably Radek, and... botanists. Lots of them. Maybe a couple of chemists wouldn't go awry. Oh, and a geologist, but engineers, mostly; people who work with the water system and can tell me why no one noticed this mess,” Rodney says. That sorted he moves the two feet into Porter's personal space. “What've you got?”

“Not a lot. It's seawater, same as is all around us and the plant stuff isn't anything we've come across, must be planetary. I have no idea, though. The fluctuations in gravity are because of the plants, I think, maybe.”

They scroll through the readings on the data-pad then both just stare: he corridor in front of them is full of the pipes and machinery of the pump, the wall lined with the upright, wide pipes of the filters; there are ten at regular intervals all along the passage, as there are supposed to be but each one has a hole; the corridor is flooded but the water stops, some kind of dam making the corridor a kind of pond. The water level on the pipes is just below the hole but every time the gravity fluctuates the water rises up in bubbles and floats, breaking when gravity normalises like rain. The plants are big and rubbery, bright purple, their roots filling the water. They float with the lapses in gravity too, roots reaching up for the bubbles and when the bubbles break over them the flower-like centres tilt to catch it.

“Well this is new,” John says, sauntering up. “Whoa.”

The exclamation is because the gravity shifts and the scene does it's floaty-dancey thing again.

“Cool,” John says. “Why aren't we floating?”

“There's a force field right in front of us in case the pumps malfunction. Don't want to accidentally flood the city with drinking water,” Porter explains.

“I guess not. What's that?” John points to the dams.

“Salt,” McKay says. “From the water.”

“Huh. Is this someone from botany's joke?” John asks.

“No, of course not,” Parish says, appearing as well, along with a short squat woman and one of Radek's buddies, three other people on their heels. “Can we take down the force field and get a closer look at the plants?”

“Yeah, we need to suit up, though. There's a ready room the other side of the corridor,” John says. “Use the transporters.”

There's a crush as everyone tries to leave at once and John hangs back with Rodney, rolling his eyes. It takes about twenty minutes to get everyone into suits. Rodney works on the forcefield, making sure that he only takes down the nearer one and not the one further out; best not to affect the entire city's gravity.

“Okay,” he says. “I'm ready. Now before we go stomping about, no one passes the salt barrier things and no one destroys the ecosystem before we know where it comes from and what it's doing. Parish, your team is on the plants. Find out what they are and where they came from. You with the red hair, your will be on the dams. I want to know what they are, other than 'salt'. Chemist, which of you is a chemist? Whoever, check the water, see if it is just water. When we know a.) what the plants are feeding on and why the water bubbles, and b.) if we can do anything without affecting the balance, we will work on repairs. Engineers, hang back for now. Okay, go.”

Rodney sits against the wall with his laptop co-ordinating the feeds of data that Porter sends him. He frowns.

“Wait, wait. Chemist guy, the water's not salt water?” he checks, looking up.

“No sir. Wow!”

Everyone pauses while the gravity does it's loopy thing. John gets hit in the head with a bubble of water, which breaks over his suit.

“Ooookay,” the chemist says, when it settles. “Now there's salt in the water.”

Half an hour later Parish joins Rodney on the floor with a data pad, tapping away with a frown on his face. John gets bored and sits between them whistling through his teeth until Parish breaks and glares at him.

“So, David,” John says. “What are these things?”

“Plants,” Parish snaps.

John grins at Rodney.

“He's winding you up, Parish,” Rodney mutters, not wanting to be involved.

“They are some kind of, of, plant,” Parish say. “We think they're the same family as the stuff we found in the shallow points of the ocean on the first Lantea. These are slightly more... pro-active, they harvest the salt from the water and use it so build the dams and they're growing. See the smaller, limper plants that are by the dam? They're sort of backwards. They intake from the air and put out through the roots. They take the minerals from the water when it 'rains', all the salt, and build the dams. The bigger plants, in the middle, they're the ones affecting the gravity. In through the roots, out through the leaves.”

“The plants are doing all this?” John asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“That's... cool.”

“The simulations we've run suggest that they start as bulbs. They float about until they wash up somewhere they can build then they create their system.”

“The plants are like a gestalt system,” one of the engineers says, coming up and disturbing Rodney.

“Can you fix it?” John asks.

“Obviously,” Rodney says. “They're plants, they're not violent. We were only worried by the holes, you know? Could be, like, attack plants or something. But from the data the damage is done by rooting for water.”

“Exactly!” Parish says, trembling with excitement. “It's fantastic. They search for a place they can control the water output, you see.”

There's a pause while the gravity goes screwy again.

“Rachel's building a container for them so we can get them back to the lab for further study,” Parish says. “She's pretty much done. When we have a few samples you can dismantle this.”

Parish gets up and goes back into the fray, replaced by the chemist.

“I'm done, sir,” She says. “Nothing but water. You've got all that?”

“Yup,” Rodney says, already scrolling. “Interesting.”

Ten minutes later Parish and his team are off, carrying a glass container with their samples. Rodney pushes to his feet and supervises the dismantling of the eco-system and then he leaves the engineers to their repairs under Dr Porter's sharp eye.

“Why was I needed?” John asks, sidling up, a big purple, rubbery plant tucked under his arm, roots trailing.

“For fun,” Rodney snaps. “This was so useless.”

“George the geologist had fun and that chemist was muttering about some kind of substance the plants created in the water that sounded real useful and David is happy as a clam.”

“Useless for me, then. Remind me to give Dr Porter a metaphorical pat on the back even though it's her job to monitor this corridor and she doesn't really need the praise.”

“I'll remind you of the first half. Lunch?”

“Sure.”

It's three days before the effects of the gravity plant, named as such by one Colonel Sheppard, are fixed. It's three more before Parish comes bursting into the senior staff meeting with a laptop and a grin as big as his head. Lorne, taking notes for Sheppard who is mysteriously absent, winces. He's obviously familiar with the expression.

“Eldon's seen the gravity plants before!” Parish says, cheeks flushing. “There's a planet where they use it like a drug. The fluctuations in gravity affect their mental processes, much like LSD as far as Eldon can say from descriptions of both. Anyway, I was hoping we could go to the planet and see what they know.”

“David, we were in the middle of going over trade agreements,” Lorne says. “Perhaps this can wait until-”

“I'm sorry major but it can't,” Parish says, dismissing him. “Lainey's been doing some work on the compound and there are so many properties that are useful. Doctor Biro's been doing research too and she's convinced that she can use the compound as a base for several drugs. Also it can be used as a replacement in the Hoffan cure which will cut the cost of our outreach programme considerably. Aside from that we think that the plant may be edible. It's a great source of protein, vitamin k, iron.”

“So it's a good meat substitute,” Woolsey says, sitting forward/ “Ah. Yes, that's important, we've had a few... problems.”

“Planet designation?” Rodney asks, pulling up the list.

“I only have a gate address. This is from Eldon, remember?” Parish says, giving the address before Rodney can snark back.

“Um, PX-6S,” Rodney says, when it comes up. “We've been there before, for a trade fair. Ronon likes it.”

“I'll add it to the rosta,” Lorne says, also tapping at his pad.

Of course it falls to them to look at the crazy plant planet. Rodney heads to the tac room the next, accepting his gun from a wary looking weapons Sergeant. The wary look is explained by Ronon's wide, wide, terrifying grin. It also cements a thus-far nebulous suspicion for Rodney that Ronon had something to do with this mission being theirs.

“What did you do?” Rodney asks, sitting on the bench in front of Ronon to do up his vest.

“Nothin',” Ronon says, grinning the word through teeth.

John comes in, boots untied, hair a mess, vest already on, and takes a seat next to Rodney with a grunt.

“Good morning,” Rodney says, looking him up and down. “Busy night?”

“Fucking Parish,” John mutters.

Rodney's eyes widen at the word choice for just a second before common sense and context kick in. But for a brief moment he thinks John means he's been up fucking Parish and Rodney's brain goes blank.

“Uh... huh,” is all he can manage, verbally. John gives him a sideways look then grunts and bends to do up his laces.

“He buzzed me every five minutes,” John says. “Because he was high as a fucking kite and kept thinking there was a fucking marine looming in the corner of his fucking room.”

“Why buzz you about that? Why not Lorne?”

“Because he's a fucking paranoid shit. I am so having words about heads of science divisions getting buzzed. You know that it was fucking Fiona Flores from Mathematics last week? Up on that balcony off her head.”

“You're just tired,” Rodney says, grinning at the profusion of 'fuck' from the usually fairly clean-spoken colonel. “Besides Fiona's department falls under both Radek and I and she hardly counts as a division head. And it was the first week, not last week. First week back people were allowed to get high.”

“No they weren't allowed, everyone just did it. I'm going to kill Parish. And Sandy.”

“The homophobic marine?”

“Not the time or place,” John snaps, even though he brought it up, getting to his feet and crashing about the lockers looking for something or nothing.

Rodney shrugs and fills his vest pockets with supplies and power bars, checks his P90 and the Beretta, then heads out to the jumper bay. He does a basic mechanical check as he always does, checks the service log and makes sure it wasn't that idiot Clamps who did the last maintenance. Sheppard comes up next, checking the equipment and supplies against the log then going through pre-flight and logging the extra mission supplies (mostly things botany's shoved off on them). Ronon and Teyla show up once they're almost ready to go, Teyla stowing an extra pack and adding it to John's log. John snatches the log back and gives it a once over before nodding. Rodney takes the co-pilot seat before Ronon tries to call it and runs through the information Parish gave him in the briefing.

“Atlantis, this is jumper five,” John drawls.

“You have a go,” Chuck says through the comm. “Gate's already dialed. Good luck.”

“So, second mission back, not counting training,” John says, taking the jumper down into the gateroom. “How're we all feeling?”

Rodney's laughing as they rush through the wormhole and when they pop out Teyla's got a wry smile on her face and Ronon looks vaguely amused.

“Feelings, John? You want to talk about feelings?” Rodney says, still half laughing.

John grins back at him and shrugs before focussing on the planet instead of the team. It takes them an hour to find the little village Eldon named as home to the strange plants and ten more minutes for John to find a place to land in the rocky terrain.

“This is a mountain,” Rodney complains, shouldering his pack. “We have to walk up a mountain? Couldn't you have landed uphill from the place?”

“Then it'd be uphill home,” John says. “And no, this was the closest place to land. Come on, it's only three klicks, it's hardly a marathon.”

“I wonder if the plants help with the water situation,” Teyla says as they make off. “We didn't see any streams close by, perhaps the plant takes water from the air.”

“Perhaps they do,” John says. “That's what we're here to find out: the many uses of strange flora. Ronon, take point.”

Rodney decides, half way up, that he might actually volunteer for Scientist Fitness in the mornings. He doesn't remember hiking uphill being this tiring before their earth-side stay.

“Chin up, Mckay,” John says, keeping pace at his side. “At least it's not too hot.”

Rodney just grunts in reply. It's hot enough, in his opinion. And John's cool, calm composure is not making things better. John grins at him and whistles through his teeth.

“Shut up,” Rodney says.

The village, set on a plateau, is reached by a steep twisting path that hugs a small outcrop of rock. The path leads them to walk close to a thousand metre drop that has Rodney's heart beat picking up. He's panting and sweating when they finally reach the group of trees that marks the edge of the village.

“Well here we are,” John mutters. “That path can't be the only access point, Ronon, it's too susceptible to weather conditions and erosion. You said this planet goes through an icy winter?”

Rodney grunts affirmatively.

“Must be another way up here. Or maybe the villagers are mountain goats,” John says, relaxing and looking around, leaving Ronon on watch.

“There,” Teyla says, pointing.

There are figures in the trees, moving closer, flickering in sunshine patterns and broken up by the leaves. They resolve themselves into three short people, gender indiscriminate, wholly naked.

“How on earth did Eldon end up here?” Rodney mutters.

“Not on earth, remember?” John mutters back. The three naked people approach, bowing over and over. Teyla returns the gesture.

“We are explorers,” she says. “We are peaceful. We come looking for trade.”

The shortest of the three steps forward and bows again.

“We are not used to people coming all the way out here. Occasionally we get visitors from the trade fairs. There is no trade fair at the moment.”

The voice is high, but Rodney still can't pin down a gender.

“We were told of your village from one of these visitors,” Teyla explains.

“In that case you are welcome,” the same indigenous person says. “We are not all used to the tongue you speak but I shall act as guide and interpreter for you, for a small fee.”

Rodney's itching to reach for his datapad and get on with their research but he's learnt better in his years of off-world missions. He feels vaguely insulted when John shoots him a warning look but he supposes it's warranted. It helps control the itch, anyway. He glares at John and pretends to listen to Teyla negotiating.

“Hey,” John says, suddenly, obviously actually listening to Teyla. “Teyla, no.”

“Colonel,” Teyla says, her voice censoring.

John growls then tears off his dogtags and hands them over to her. His face is cloudy, though, and Rodney knows this isn't the end of it. He also knows that those are the tags John's worn since his second commission as a Major and that giving them up isn't something Teyla should have asked of him. Rodney frowns, deciding to watch closer. She must have had her reasons. Their guide bites the metal of the tags, then licks what must be the salt of sweat off them, then smiles.

“Yes, this will do nicely,” the guide says. “Good. I can see this will go smoothly. I am Pool, and my two companions are Cedar and Cloud.”

“I am Teyla,” Teyla says. “The man whose metal you have is the Colonel, and the other two are Soldier and Doctor.”

“Good. You will follow?”

“Yes,” Teyla says.

They're lead through the trees in a winding fashion, whether to disorient them or not Rodney can't tell but he knows both John and Ronon are charting the area around them as they go, keeping track of space and direction. He can hear John counting under his breath.

“Why the names?” Rodney asks.

“Their names are signifiers, not names,” John answers. “Pool, tree, sky. Dunno if that's just the way they're named or if it's some structure of their society.”

Rodney plods on, sweating through his shirt. When they break out of the trees the huts they saw from above are suddenly all around them, three even nestled in the trees with them. They're simple and ‘primitive’ but they're solidly built and Rodney would bet, judging from the materials he identifies (wood, clay, a kind of basic cement they've seen other places, even some metal), that they're weather-proof.

“I will take you to our Circle,” Pool says. “My companions have other duties so we must part now.”

Cloud and Cedar bow and smile, then leave, vanishing into one of the houses. Pool nods in   
contentment and walks onwards. Rodney surreptitiously sets his scanner to chart the area around them, checking for earth-metals, the chemical composition of the dirt, the quality of the air up here. He can look at the data later.

“Here we are,” Pool says. “Come and sit.”

There's a circle of people, all naked, all sun-browned. They watch curiously as Pool leads the Lanteans over but room is made and when they're sat, a big bowl of fruit is passed around along with plenty of water.

“We accept your hospitality,” Teyla says, when she takes a piece of fruit and a cup of water. “We are here to trade.”

“Our hospitality is willingly given,” one of the people in the circle says. “We have learnt the way of trade from the trade fairs and are familiar with many customs.”

Rodney realises that something has passed between Teyla and the others, some understanding reached. Teyla takes more fruit and passes the bowl, which is woven, to John. John still looks put out but he takes a handful of berries and something that looks like a chunk of mango and passes the bowl on. Rodney accepts a mug of water which he downs at once, and a refill, and just takes a piece of something orange.

“Now that we have eaten together we can trade. This is our custom,” Pool says.

“I understand,” Teyla says.

It's the same as a hundred other first contact meetings. Teyla does the talking, Ronon keeps watch, Rodney and John sit bored out of their skulls. Teyla starts off with basic trades and once she has an agreement she starts feeling out the kinds of flora the villagers have. It takes three hours for the plants they're after to come up.

“We can show you our harvest,” someone named Jaan says. “This very unique plant is one of the most reliable crops. Not only is it very good to eat but it is also full of important nutrients and the process of growing gives us water and air.”

Rodney clicks all of a sudden. The gravity fluctuations are to pull in water and the compound must affect the oxygen levels. Lainey had said something of the sort but she'd been distracted by the properties and possible uses and the research into the strange oxygen levels they'd found in the data after the fact had been put aside.

“It is food?” Teyla asks.

“Yes, you have eaten already some of the root.”

Jaap shows them the orange fruit and Rodney wonders if he's going to die but then John pinches him.

“Would you like to see the harvest?” Jaap asks, only when Teyla has taken another piece of the orange root or fruit or whatever it is and eaten it.

“Very much,” Teyla says.

Pool and Jaap rise, along with three others, but the rest of the circle remains sat as they had been on the Lanteans arrival. Rodney's curious about how the plant will grow up here with so little water and he walks with Teyla and Jaap, waiting for a pause in the treatise on the uses of various plant life.

“I was wondering,” Rodney says, in such a pause, “about the data-pad.”

Teyla inclines her head, smiling.

“Would it be permissible for my colleague to take some readings?” she says. “Our people will be much more willing to trade if we can understand what is being offered on our own terms.”

“Then you may take whatever readings you like. We do not allow samples to be removed, however,” Jaap says, twisting off a leaf and passing it to Teyla. “You had better taste as much as you can while you are here.”

Teyla eats the leaf willingly and Rodney wonders again if they're all going to die one day, feasting on alien food the way they do. Then again, their physiology, according to both Keller and Carson, is similar to the other Ancient-seeded races. They can eat what the natives eat with a certain amount of safety. Most of the time. Rodney focuses on his pad and his scanner instead of imminent possible death, running an algorithm that he created with Parish's parameters and 'help'. It actually makes Rodney's job a lot easier but he's not going to say so. He walks right into John when John comes to a sudden stop.

“Wow,” John mutters.

Rodney looks up. They've come up through a gulley to a higher plateau and the rocky ground up here is covered, as far as the eye can see, with a series of pools, and Gravity plant.

“Our Jorah crop,” Jaap says proudly.

The dams aren't made out of salt, here, but mineral deposits kind of like stalagmites. The effect of the gravity fluctuations is lessened by the open air and water drawn must be smaller amounts.

“This is incredible,” Rodney says, pushing past John. “Do you mind?”

He holds up the scanner and when Jaap inclines his head Rodney hurries over to the nearest pool to take readings and make notes. He falls into the rhythm of research and information gathering and loses track of the others and of time. It's growing dark by the time John taps his shoulder.

“Are we done?” Rodney asks, straightening his back and getting to his feet.

He's made his way pretty far into the pools and when John nods they have a bit of a walk back to the village. They have an escort, one of the people who came from the circle with them, and John speaks to them as if he's spent the afternoon with them. Which Rodney supposes is probably the case.

“You are invited to stay for a meal,” Pool says, meeting them at the bottom of the gully. “It would cement relations.”

“We would like to,” Teyla says. “However we need to had back, I'm afraid. It would be wonderful if we could stay but it is not feasible. We will return within a week if that is desirable?”

“Very well,” Pool says. “I will make it well with the Circle. Will it be you who returns or some others?”

“It will be me,” Teyla says. “But with other colleagues.”

“You are interested in the Jorah, I think?” Pool says.

“We are interested in many of the crops you produce but the Jorah is, as you have told us, very unique.”

Pool's head tilts then nods in non-agreement.

“I will speak to the Circle,” Pool says, walking away.

“Ronon?” John asks.

“We're good,” Ronon says.

John nods. He's tense, though, and not pleased for some reason. Rodney thinks today's gone smoothly. By the time they've made their goodbyes and left Pool at the edge of the fringe of trees John's positively vibrating.

“What?” Rodney asks.

John just grunts and takes point, setting a harsh pace for the uneven ground. Rodney almost falls twice and is breathless again when they reach the jumper, holding a stitch in his side, about ready to commit mutiny.

“Not a word,” John snaps, “from any of you.”

Their take off is jerky and John is tense and silent the whole way. When Ronon speaks the jumper drops a little and John growls so they stay silent, too. John tears out of the jumper bay back on Atlantis and stalks to the ready room.

“Debrief tomorrow,” he growls. “Richard, we're debriefing tomorrow.”

“We agreed to do that this evening,” Woolsey says, over the radio, “Doctor Parish is all set up.”

“Tomorrow, oh-seven-hundred in your office,” John snaps.

“Alright,” Woolesy says. “Your report better explain why.”

John tugs his vest off and throws his boots across the room then refuses to give the Sergeant his pistol. He's clearly seriously pissed off.

“Team meeting,” he grits out. “Rodney's room, twenty minutes.”

“John-” Teyla starts.

“That gives you time to check on Torren. Twenty minutes.”

John leaves then, storming loudly.

“What's that about?” Ronon asks, handing over the Beretta he was carrying today.

“Dog tags,” Rodney says, snapping his fingers in remembrance. “You traded his tags, Teyla.”

Teyla grimaces but doesn't say anything, walking out with her head held high. Ronon shrugs and leaves, too. Rodney struggles out of his vest and checks his pockets are re-stocked before putting it away and handing over his weapons.

“I'll make sure that the Colonel brings the Ordnance officer his pistol,” Rodney says, handing his own over.

“See that he does,” the sergeant says sourly. “Can't have the Colonel mis-firing, can we?”

Rodney glares at the man until he grumps off. He might be a scientist but that doesn't mean he misses everything. Rodney stops briefly in his own room to change his sweaty top then heads through to John's via the kitchen, snagging a bottle of water and a sandwich on his way through.

“Here,” he says, tossing the food and drink onto the bed beside John.

“What are you doing in my room?” John asks, but not as if he particularly minds. “Thanks.”

“You should be thankful, I'm hungry and I'm having to put off dinner and give up the sandwich I had saved.”

“That's very kind of you,” John snarks, tearing the sandwich open and giving Rodney half.

“Are you really going to have a go at Teyla?” Rodney asks, curiosity getting the better of him as he sits on the bed and takes a generous bite out of his half of the sandwich.

“She took my tags.”

“She negotiated something worthless for something important.”

“Tags aren't worthless,” John snaps, getting to his feet and striding about, muttering cut off words and phrases, searching for a way to explain.

“Alright,” Rodney says. “Sit and eat, you have about ten minutes. You need to hand your gun in, by the way, or you'll get me in trouble.”

“I already gave it to Stackhouse.”

“Stackhouse is the Ordnance Officer?”

“No, that's probably Captain Leaven, if you mean the guy in charge of our entire Ordnance.”

“Yeah, that's it. Did I get it wrong?”

“Nope. Leaven's an Ordnance officer. So's Stackhouse, as Maintenance Control Sergeant. Our Ordnance corp has five Ordnance officers.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, let's move out.”

Rodney shuffles back to his own room. John brings a shoebox with him and sits on Rodney's ergonomic mattress, cross legged and brooding. Teyla comes in with her chin tilted up in defiance and sits in the desk chair. Ronon leans, arms crossed, more or less patiently.

“So, here we all are,” Rodney says, false cheer making him clap his hands. “How... nice. John?”

John opens his box and rifles through before pulling out a handful of dog tags.

“Lyle Holland, Ronnie Davis,” John says, laying the sets out in front of him. “Lorna Faith, Duggie O'Tool. I don't have Mitch and Dex, their families wanted theirs. Faith's is single, you see? We couldn't take her body, just the breakaway. Duggie we didn't find, he was in a hospital at the wrong base and no one knew him. He could only be treated because they had his tags to access his records. These are our identity. It's also the military's promise to us- to bring us home, even if we die.”

“I know that they are important,” Teyla says. “But they were what Pool wanted, and I saw no harm. We can identify you if we need.”

John growls in frustration and dumps his collection back into the box before getting up grab Ronon's arm.

“His tattoo, your tattoo. It's a rank thing, right? A military thing?”

“Yeah,” Ronon says. “Marks me as a specialist and gives my rank.”

“And you have a family one, too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That's what a dog tag is.”

“Oh. Don't take his dog tags,” Ronon says, tightening up and turning to Teyla. She makes a noise of exasperation.

“I understand that there's importance in such symbols,” she says, “but we had nothing else he wanted and you can get new ones made as I understand.”

“I can and I will,” John says. “But I wore those. They've been part of my skin on missions since... I wore them with Holland, as he died, and all my missions since I was commissioned as a major. I held them at my men's funerals, I wore them to lead my men. Those tags were- God damn it, Teyla! You don't trade a man's tags!”

“It is done now,” Teyla says, getting up. “And I do not see why it should not have been.”

“It would be like... like... like trading...” John looks around helplessly, for inspiration or something.

“It would be like trading one of the keepsakes Chaya and your father left you,” Rodney says softly/ “Things that are meaningless and useless to everyone, but important to you.”

Teyla stops by the door, her back to the room, then she spins on them all, eyes bright with anger.

“Would one of you like to take the negotiations next time? No? I did not think so. Rodney, I would trade these things if it was needed. My memories of them are not held by material objects. Perhaps the tags were important,but I have already apologised, Colonel, and I will not do so again. And I will not stay here to be berated like a small child who has misbehaved. I admit that I misread the importance of the item to you but I stand by my decision. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to see my child before he goes to sleep.”

“Sorry, Sheppard,” Ronon says, shrugging, following Teyla out. John goes to close his shoe box, still seething. He turns abruptly when Rodney shifts.

“I don't care, Mckay, you don't trade a man's tags.”

“Alright,” Rodney says. “It's done now though.”

“She doesn't get it. She didn't get it!”

“Cultural misunderstanding?”

“Damn it. None of you get it. Why did I build a team of such... damn it Rodney!”

“I do kind of get it and I know why you're upset.”

“Upset. I'm not upset. I don't want her to trade them again.”

“I don't think she will. Like she said, she understands better now, knows that they hold importance. She'll value them higher.”

“Stop being so reasonable.”

Rodney shrugs.

“Do you want to get dinner?”

“No,” John says, shortly. “I have to go sort out my tags.”

Rodney saves him a sandwich and a fruit cup from dinner, leaving them in the kitchen for him. The debriefing goes better than the team meeting had, John keeping his temper in check and letting the others do the talking. Parish is pleased with the outcome of the mission and eager to return with Teyla. Rodney's glad that the Gravity plant is now beyond his purview and he can get back to his real projects.

He pays half attention to Parish's work on the plant but after a week Parish hands it off to his team, changing his focus to a plant the trade team brought back that is half potato and half watermelon. Or that's how he describes it, anyway. Rodney's sat in the lab, listening to Radek ranting in Czech and trying to re-write three algorithms, checking Atlantis's isolation programming and wondering when someone's going to arrive who's low enough on the food-chain for Rodney to send out for coffee, when Jennifer walks in.

“Hi,” Rodney says, eyeing the coffee in her hand.

“Don't worry, it's for you,” she says. “No needling needed.”

She hands over the coffee and waits for him to inhale half of it before bothering to talk more.

“You are utterly perfect,” Rodney says, eyes closed, savouring his coffee.

“Then what I'm here to tell you is gonna break your heart.”

“Oh. Oh, is this... the official thing?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Oh. I might not be heartbroken, but it is... yeah.”

“I know.”

Jennifer leans against Rodney's desk, brooding. Rodney watches her, insides warring between being sad and being something else.

“Guess I'm still.... fond of you,” he says. “Right?”

“Right, yeah. We're still friends. Exactly. Oh, your rubber Gravity thing? Biro's working on the compound. She thinks she can use it as the base for an epilepsy treatment,” Jennifer says.

“That's cool,” Rodney says.

“Yeah and more than that, it's re-producible on earth so she can publish there and it'll probably actually end up being taken on by other teams whose expertise is in that field.”

Rodney smiles, thinking of Jeannie, ducking his head to hide his pleasure.

“You're so... Rodney, you're going to make someone real happy some day,” Jennifer says, cupping his jaw and raising his head. “Well, I suppose this is it.”

“This is weird. It's going to be awkward, isn't it?”

“Yes it is.”

Jennifer, to Rodney's surprise, kisses him passionately before sauntering out, swinging her hips. He watches her go and then packs up his work, shoulders his laptop bag and heads out. It's late, it's after dinner, he doesn't have to work.

“Ready for the mission tomorrow?” John asks, when Rodney strides into his room, his Tolstoy spread open on his chest.

“Hey, you're almost done,” Rodney says, distracted from the rant he had winding up by the smallness of the chunk of book left to be read.

“I am done, I just finished it,” John says. “I'm digesting.”

“But you've still got pages to go.”

“Nope. That's just glossary and stuff.”

Rodney snatches up the book to check but John's not lying.

“Huh. That's... that sucks. It's finished? It's over? Nothing left? Just the dregs and memories.”

Rodney throws the book at the wall, sits down on John's bed and bursts into tears. John just blinks at him then goes and makes him a cup of tea. He comes back with the tea and with some biscuits and a KitKat, all of which (except the tea) he dumps in Rodney's lap.

“You're hopeless at this,” Rodney says, watery and miserable, curling up around his sugary stash and making himself at home.

“Yeah,” John says, trailing a hand over the covers. “I know. It's the crying thing. When it starts I just don't know what to do!”

“Be comforting. Jennifer broke my heart.”

“I thought it was-”

“That's not comforting.”

“Oh. Um... wanna watch, like, Star Wars?”

“Fine.”

John sets it up, then hovers, then curses and goes and comes back with more food, then climbs onto the bed and pats Rodney's head and then he just sits still.

“Thanks,” Rodney says, half laughing., “I think.”

“Shut up.”

Rodney ends up falling asleep in John's room and when he wakes, John's sat there still, watching him, face crinkled up with worry.

“Are you really, um, you know?” John asks.

“No but it's still the end of something good.”

“Okay.”

“Don't worry so much, I just wanted to wallow.”

“Okay.”

John still looks worried. When morning comes around, Rodney finds himself in his underpants and t-shirt, under the covers, safe and comfy and warm. There's coffee on the side waiting for him and no signs of John. Rodney showers and heads for the ready room.

“Meetings, meetings, meetings,” John grouches, striding already fully dressed and looking like he's been up for hours. “And Ronon, next time you say 'run' and mean 'excuse to get rid of pent up energy because Amelia is not in the mood', call on someone else. My heels hurt.”

“Don't worry, I will. Waiting for you to catch up is boring,” Ronon says.

Rodney ignores them and checks his tac vest for the third time, before heading out to the gateroom.

“Dr McKay,” Woolsey says, heading down the steps with Rodney. “Good morning.”

“Is it? I suppose it's not all bad, so far. I haven't been up long,” Rodney says, absently, going over the mission brief on his tablet.

Eight hours later, coming back through the gate to more or less the same spot, he curses himself for jinxing things.

“Can we get a medical team?” he shouts, lowering Ronon to sit on the steps.

John ducks out from under Ronon's other arm and runs up the stairs to Woolsey's office, already talking him through the disaster. Rodney waits with Ronon and Teyla until Jennifer comes and puts Ronon on a stretcher to be wheeled away, then he waits for John, taking Ronon's seat and snacking on an energy bar. John comes down the steps looking grim.

“Could've used them as allies,” he says, tapping Rodney on the shoulder. “That kind of weapons-power should be turned against the Wraith.”

“They were psychotic! They shot Ronon because his hair was the wrong colour!” Rodney says, getting to his feet.

They bicker companionably, walking shoulder to shoulder, Rodney playing devil's advocate for the hell of it. It's not until they turn up at Teyla's quarters that he realises he has no idea where they're going or what they're doing. When Kanaan opens the door and John heads straight for Torren, lifting the little boy up into his arms and sniffing his hair, Rodney understands.

“Where is Teyla?” Kanaan asks, tense but not afraid.

That's a step forward. He knows John well enough now, it seems, to know that bad news gets  
broken on the doorstep as quickly as possible. 

“She's gone to the infirmary with Ronon. They're both fine, Ronon got grazed by a bullet and pulled a muscle dodging a second one,” Rodney says, leaning in the doorway to watch John settle on the floor with Torren and the toys that are out.

“Is John Sheppard alright?” Kanaan asks, eyes finding John and Torren, too.

“Yes yes,” Rodney says, brushing it away. “He made a connection with one of the village children who acted as a sort of guide to us and we had no chance to...”

Rodney waves a hand, not sure how to put it. Save him, help him, bring him home as a brand new squishy toy. He's not sure what John wanted. Kanaan nods, though, as if understanding, and invites Rodney in for tea. Rodney feels incredibly grown up, sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea with Kanaan while John and Torren play. He snorts, realising that makes John his kid.

“How if Jennifer?” Kanaan asks, when the silence stretches.

“She's good. Um, she and I, we aren't... well, we broke up. Stopped... relationship... uh... relationshiping.”

Maybe not so grown up after all. Kanaan inclines his head and changes the subject, like a real grown up. John comes through from the living room, Torren on his hip, smiling. The tension around his mouth and nose has eased, which makes Rodney relax a little, too.

“We got hungry,” John says, bumping Torren up. “Didn't we?”

Torren holds out his arms to his father and smacks his lips, setting off on a stream of modulated sounds that's an imitation of tone. Jeannie says that babies learn the sounds and shape of language before they learn the specific and that's why they seem like they're talking even when the words are nonsense. Like the whales. Rodney can't help thinking of Torren in the same kind of way he thought of Sam the Whale.

“Rodney? You comin'?”

Rodney looks up and realises John's ready to go, probably towards food. Rodney waves to Torren and Kanaan and trails after John.

“You're right,” Rodney admits, halfway to the mess. “We could have done with those weapons.”

“Yeah,” John sighs.

It's almost a month before Rodney ends up on a mission with the team after that. He gets stuck in the guts of Atlantis, chasing down an error in coding that's wreaking havoc, causing cold showers and flickering lights, people being locked out of their quarters, the failure of a force-field during a storm that leads to flooding and more damage. Rodney spends the three weeks it takes to find the mistake and properly punish the party involved getting more and more frustrated. Every Friday John drags him to the music room to listen to whoever's playing and that helps but he's still in a towering rage when he finds out that it's an actual mistake someone made that's been causing the trouble.

Being stuck on Atlantis isn't all bad. He gets a lot of work done on side projects, because he can actually clock off at a reasonable time. While it's annoying the system failures are non-crucial ones, spaced far apart and not 'work yourself sick' kind of problems, so it's kind of relaxing. A holiday, as it were. Still, it's boring and mundane and not at all what he expected to be doing. Fixing the city? Sure. Chasing coding through random computing centres and scanning it until his eyes feel like they're bleeding? Maybe but only in dire circumstances.

Between his three week break, his break up with Jennifer and settling into the city after a long time on earth something in Rodney shifts. He finds himself calmer, once he's raised hell for the person involved in the mess, finds it easier to relax. Easier to sleep, even. He also finds that the status-quo, the general status of being, is much more comfortable than previously. The city isn't falling apart around them, the war they're part of seems further away and less pressing, his own life seems less of a stressful race to the finish.

Somewhere along the way he realises that Jeannie is wrong. Well, not always and not about everything, but about marriage. He doesn't have to find a woman to settle down with before his sell by date. He doesn't have to do it at all unless it's something he wants. He always thought he had wanted it but he'd had that kind of thing with Jennifer and they'd both decided not to pursue the white picket fence, not to stay on earth, because that wasn't the life either of them wanted. He doesn't need to demand everyone respect him and remember how much more intelligent than them he is, either. He is, strangely and distractingly, already respected: his team listens to him and does what he suggests in chasing the coding. He's rude and abrasive and they buck against that but it's against his manner and not against him. Him they seem to actually like and enjoy working with. It's very disconcerting to realise that. And Radek he's even friends with! they play chess, bicker about side projects, check each other’s math out of genuine interest.

And they already know he's really clever. So there's that.

“Rodney, everyone here is 'really clever'. Most people have an IQ way above average. Everyone is exceptionally bright and leaders in their fields, it's how they ended up here,” John says, when Rodney points all this out to him one evening.

“Yes, but I'm cleverest.”

“Yes dear, you're cleverest.”

“Come on! You know I'm better than everyone at this stuff. Everyone does! I save the city on the daily!”

“On the daily?”

“Oh shut up and admit I'm right.”

John keeps his lips sealed shut and just gazes at Rodney, expressionless. Rodney flaps a hand at him because everyone knows it's true.

“Anyway,” Rodney says, another time, when they're sitting in the mess hall watching a group of anthropologists put on a Pegasus adaptation of Ben Jonson's Volpone. Rodney can't work out how Volpone ended up as a Wraith. “I've changed.”

“Okay,” John drawls, leaning forward in his chair to watch Volpone attempt to drain the life force out of Mosca only for Mosca to reveal he's wearing armour made out of gold coins.

“I cannot now afford it you so cheap,” Mosca says.

“I have!” Rodney says.

“I said okay,” John says, frowning at the stage. “Now hush, I'm watching.”

“But it's shit!”

John grins at him, delighted by something, and shrugs. Rodney subsides with a last grumble.

“Rodney says he's turned over a new leaf,” John tells Amelia at breakfast, only the three of them there yet. “He is apparently converted.”

“I never said that,” Rodney snaps. “I just said I was different.”

Amelia ignores them and focuses on her high-piled tray of food.

“That's what I said,” John says.

“I had got fruit for you,” Rodney says, “I don't think I'm gonna give it you now.”

“Gimme,” John says, making grabby hands at Rodney.

Rodney passes him the bowl of grapes, and settles in to breakfast, and his new leaf.


End file.
